Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

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.

One of the problems in covering the history of the orcs is that after the Rise of the Horde period, we've done it already quite a few times. The history of the orcs is the history of the Horde. Just in covering Orgrim Doomhammer's life, we've covered the formation of the Horde to a great extent.

What's interesting when considering the orcs as a people is how they were betrayed by their own virtues. The orc tendency to revere the spirits, their genius at preserving clan individuality yet coming together in times of crisis, their willingness to respect their elders and heed their wisdom -- all of these traits were twisted under first Ner'zhul and then Gul'dan. While Ner'zhul was proud, even arrogant, his initial actions in kindling the war against the draenei were sincere. He believed that the spirit of his dead wife Rulkan had returned to warn him of the draenei threat, accompanied by a "great one" who would teach Ner'zhul new magics to use to protect his people.

No matter Ner'zhul's flaws, it cannot be denied he was sincere. Yes, he hungered for power and respect (even though he was in fact powerful and respected) and yes, he prosecuted the war with the draenei when he really only had the word of Kil'jaeden that the draenei were evil and plotting against the orcs. And yes, Ner'zhul ignored for a time that he was losing the respect of the ancestor spirits and that the elements grew distant from him. He put himself ahead of his role as elder shaman. It cannot and should not be denied. But even in his most aggressive moments, Ner'zhul was neither blind nor a fool. He began to realize that his spiritual advisor, Kil'jaeden, resemble a draenei and hated Velen with a fervor the orc could barely comprehend. He began to wonder why the spirts would not speak to him.

And so he made his way to Oshu'gun.

When the Raid Finder was first introduced, I had high hopes for its impact on the game. While the main reason behind the implementation of this system was arguably to get as many players experiencing raid content as possible, at the time, I was more interested in the impact it would have on the progression races between all of the top guilds in the world. I have always had a great deal of admiration for players in these types of guilds and have watched intently during each new tier as they all vied for world firsts. I believed the Raid Finder could benefit this type of competition by preventing heroic encounters from being nerfed while the content was still current. Surely, I thought, if so many people are able to experience raiding like never before through this new tool, Blizzard would have no pressing reason to make heroic encounters any easier.

Well, it seems I was wrong, for in the very next tier of content Blizzard released, we saw progressive nerfs to these difficult fights. Personally, I prefer to keep these encounters the way they are, at least until a new tier is released. Something just feels wrong to see the hardest fights available made easier through a series of hotfixes. Even with respect to my own guild's progression, having sweeping nerfs hit Firelands just as my guild was putting in some really good attempts on Ragnaros felt like Blizzard moved the finish line, taking what would have been a very gratifying kill and turning it into an accidental one-shot that contained none of the catharsis we had felt during previous boss kills.

What do you think? With the Raid Finder now a reality and a new expansion looming on the horizon, do you think the difficulty of heroic raid encounters should be static, like those from tier 11, or should they be more flexible?

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When it comes to information, Blizzard is pretty tight-lipped. The only things we know about the Mists of Pandaria pandaren racial mount is that it hasn't been decided on yet publicly. Internally, I would wager, there are thousands upon thousands of pandaren riding atop their noble steeds ... whatever steed that may be.

While we still don't know exactly what the pandaren mount is going to be, that has not stopped the internet from speculating. Malchome over at mmo-report.com thinks that the pandaren mount should be a keg cart pulled by some sort of mule or yak. Epic versions could be more intricate, much like the goblin trikes gain complexity as their quality increases. There is a wonderful little mock-up drawing of the keg cart in the post as well. I love the idea as a mount in general, not even just for pandaren, especially with the Brewfest connection.

Personally, I believe the pandaren mount is going to be some sort of frog or amphibian. We don't have many of those types of creatures as mounts in WoW, and it gives the artists a chance to do some really cool ornamental graphics on some sort of creature. There is a Chinese symbol for prosperity called the Chan Chu, a three-legged frog creature that carries a coin in its mouth, that could be adopted to be the pandaren mount. Giant Chan Chu frogs might share the land with the pandaren, much like the kodo beasts roam the plains of Mulgore with the tauren.

Take a moment and picture this: There's a politician out there, a pretty sleazy politician, who is basically in a position of power to use that power to do whatever suits him or her best -- no regard for anyone that voted him into office, no real sense of caring for those he is supposedly serving. One day, someone comes up to that politician and says, "Hey man, I'll give you $3 million if you start taking an interest in your constituents and doing what is best for them, OK?" The politician agrees, takes the money, and promptly starts doing the right thing.

Is that politician in the wrong? Or is that politician simply learning that if he behaves badly, he'll get a bribe to start behaving correctly? What's to stop him from behaving badly again, if he thinks he's going to get another $3 million out of the deal? More importantly, if all the other politicians out there see this guy get a bribe to behave like a decent politician and all of those politicians decide to start behaving badly in an effort to get that bribe for themselves, are they in the wrong?

Seven years is a long time to be alive in the video game world. When you talk about games you played for seven years, you usually talk about WoW, Mario Kart, Goldeneye 64, and EverQuest. One thing that I have always felt was missing from Blizzard that synced up with one of my fondest memories of the MMO genre was a yearly loyalty program with rewards for all players to partake in. We get this somewhat during the Winterveil holiday with each year's exclusive gift, but I'm talking about a totally different type of loyalty reward scheme.

One of my fondest memories of any MMO ever was receiving my Ultima Online veteran rewards after a few years of play. While I can't remember the specifics of the transactions, either I was gifted my loyalty rewards or I got to choose based on seniority (it's been a long time, holy moly), but I went home with some cool items. The coolest of the bunch was a black dye tub, an item that had unlimited uses and could change any dyeable clothing item the darkest shade of black in the game. These black dye tubs were very rare and made for great items to sell at high prices down the line when they slowly became more and more rare. Maybe if you're good, I'll tell you about the time that I stole a black dye tub in the middle of Vesper bank -- I hope the four of you who thought that was impressive are smiling to yourselves.

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

Happy Presidents' Day, if you are in the United States! Otherwise, happy Monday.

We are getting in letters for an all-new results edition of Drama Mamas, but we could still use some more. If you have written the Drama Mamas and we have answered you in print, please send us an email at robin@wowinsider.com. We will compile the responses in a future column, once we get enough of them.

What's up Drama Mamas?!

Today I come with a problem of sorts... I'm part of this guild where we were all pretty close and get along great, we have been that way throughout cataclysm and I feel sorta connected to these folks.

Now about a month or so ago a few of our core raid members that were originally on the team I was part of quit the game. That caused a rift in our guild and the leader of our second raid team stepped up to the plate and now leads our core group (as well as the guild but that's a different story). While we were trying to figure out who makes the cut for our first raid group we held try outs of sorts and in the group was myself and the rogue from the second group (we both play rogues so we needed to see who got the spot). Well I was beaten by the rogue of the second group by a slim margin so the leader decided to take him on as a regular.

Sunday Morning Funnies is your weekly list of WoW-related web comics.

We have a great list this week, featuring an official valentine, a heart-to-heart mother-daughter talk, and all other manner of mushy stuff. Don't fret, though; we have skull-bashing, too.

If you haven't checked in for a couple of weeks, you should know that we have a new comic or two on the list! There are even a couple of comics that don't always update on the list this week.

What is your favorite comic this week? Drop a line in the comments section. It was close for me, but I really did giggle at that valentine!

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we use our mystical time chicken powers to gaze into the future, which, incidentally, is so bright, we gotta wear shades. Or rather, we gotta wear mystical time chicken goggles.

No time to talk. We need to focus. A whole lot of ground to cover, guys. The Mists of Pandaria talent calculator has been updated, and all sorts of craziness be jumpin' off, yo. We've got entirely new abilities, we've got fresh takes on traditional favorites, and we've got substantial retoolings of the root mechanics of whole specs. Let's dive right in.

Talent changes

Talent tier 1 has stayed the same as the last go round, but tier 2 has a brand new ability in it, as well as a reworking of Blazing Speed that should make it a far more attractive choice.

Temporal Shield (New ability) Envelops you in a temporal shield for 4 seconds. Damage taken while shielded will be undone over 6 seconds. Not on the global cooldown. (3% base mana, Instant Cast, 25-second cooldown)

Blazing Speed Suppresses movement slowing effects and increases your movement speed by 150% for 1.50 seconds. May only be activated after taking a melee or spell hit greater than 2% of your total health. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress. (Instant cast, 25-second cooldown)

When the Mists of Pandaria talent trees first debuted, I wasn't the most pleased DPS shaman on the block. I wasn't exactly displeased, either; my emotional involvement was most summed up by the word "meh." Stone Bulwark Totem looked interesting; Healing Tide Totem had me super psyched; and Echo of the Elements looked insanely powerful, stacked with elemental's mastery. On the flipside, the entire third tier of talents looked super boring, and the top tier of level 90 talents was so underwhelming that I almost wrote off the new talent system as a lost cause.

Thankfully, we're not in even the closed friends-and-family beta yet, and so I knew changes would definitely be implemented in time. I've been looking forward to Wednesday's talent calculator update for nearly three months now, and I'm glad to see that I wasn't terribly let down. While there still are some definite issues with the tree as it stands, Blizzard's already said that we were one of the two classes that it's currently focusing on, which is why our level 90 tier of talents is still empty. As long as the original talents don't come back, I can only get happier. To top it all off, the new talent tree reveal also showed us our level 87 spell, which is looking to be one of the coolest in our arsenal.

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, and esoteroic topics that slip through the cracks.

Defense of the Ancients is a genre all unique to itself. Sure, the concepts are not brand new and the bulk of the original game was created using the Warcraft III World Editor, but the lasting appeal and standing reverence of the DotA genre continues today and shows no sign of slowing down. Part tower defense, part real-time strategy unit movement, this game type has experienced astounding growth all over the world over the last decade. As the genre grows, Defense of the Ancients-style games, or MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arenas), or ARTS (action real-time strategy), or... wait... what are we calling this genre?

My initial reaction to the entire naming fiasco was wonderfully summed up by Joystiq's own JC Fletcher: "Which giant company has the rights to the fan-created, community-promoted word 'Dota?'" He's right to be cynical -- justice will be meted out over a word that was born in the Blizzard maps community because of the actions of two super-huge gaming companies. That's not all there is to the story, however.

Therein lies the crux of the hot topic of the day -- Blizzard has finally thrown in its opposition of Valve's attempt to trademark the name Dota for its upcoming release of DOTA 2, a literal successor to the original DotA throne. The problem is that there are a whole bunch more facts, people, and anecdotes in this story than most people know.

I wrote a short post on the Dota trademark issue a few days ago that served as the basic of basics, what the news was about. Here's the short version: Valve is attempting to trademark a name that many gamers (and companies) consider to be a general term for the genre rather than the proper name for the game that spawned the genre. Hell, it could be both.

There are no pure DPS classes in World of Warcraft that use two-handed melee weapons to deal damage and only one pure DPS class that can even equip them. There are literally hundreds of two-handed melee weapons in this game. This has always annoyed me, because I love big weapons. I know you know this about me.

One of the reasons I hate the argument that pure DPS classes should have dibs on top DPS weapons is that in order for me to play a character that uses a two-hander, I have no choice but to play a hybrid. In fact, in order to play as melee DPSer at all, I either have to play a rogue (all three rogue trees dual wield small, fast weapons) or a hybrid. Those are my options. If I wanted to play ranged DPS, I could pick from one of three possible pure classes, but if I want to melee, I'm forced to either give up the weapons I enjoy and take up a playstyle I don't like or accept that I will be forced to DPS at a penalty and be expected and/or pressured to tank.

This to me is asking me to pay twice, and it's unacceptable. Last week, Ghostcrawler posted an excellent discussion on class and role that I highly recommend everyone check out, and it seriously has me pondering what design I'd prefer for World of Warcraft and indeed how I feel about classes and roles entirely.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!

When your paladin first hit level 81 and you visited your trainer, I bet you had no idea how much of an impact that little ability called Inquisition would have on your future DPSing career. OK, maybe if you read the tooltip you could have had some idea, but I will fully admit that I completely forgot it was in my spellbook until a short while after I hit 85. And to be fair, at the time it was a really lackluster ability. Sure, Exorcism hit like a truck thanks to the new version of The Art of War, and Hammer of Wrath still hit decently hard, but other than those two abilities, Inquisition didn't really buff a whole lot. One of the main selling points of Inquisition (if not the main selling point) came when Blizzard changed our mastery from 3 free holy power to X% extra holy damage off your most used abilities in patch 4.0.6, allowing Inquisition to boost an even larger percentage of our damage by 30%.

So, thanks to our mastery, Inquisition is here to stay. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? In case my own opinion wasn't made clear in the title, I have been a long-time supporter of this ability. However, I know that there is a very large group of players with a dissenting opinion, and that's OK. Some preferred the Wrath model of retribution to the current model, and for others, it's just the opposite. In an effort to make my reasoning clear, I'm going to pick a few of the most common complaints I have seen or heard. Hopefully, my responses won't make me seem like I'm a masochistic freak who loves to stare at a countdown and plot in advance exactly when to refresh it.

Because I'm totally not -- my therapist assures me that I'm a completely normal person.

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.

Last week, we talked about the orcs' history and culture before the dawn of the Horde period. Now, if you've read Christie Golden's Rise of the Horde (and if not, you should), then you know the outline of what came next. We're going to talk about that more next week, but this week, I wanted to touch upon something else.

What's interesting to me is how the story of the Horde's creation, which is certainly a grand and sweeping tale of betrayals, madness, and ultimately despair, is also a story of how two orcs met, fell in love, and pledged to each other despite the chaos of the dawning nightmare of Gul'dan's Horde. In light of Nyorloth's post discussing favorite relationships in Warcraft lore, it's hard not to think about Draka, daughter of Zuura and Kelkar, and Durotan, son of Geyah and Garad. Their lives would be spent as witnesses to the end of one way of life and the birth of a darker, more terrible chapter than their people had ever known.

This got me thinking about my favorite relationships in the game. These aren't all romantic ones. There are friendships, familial relationships, even enmity. Hating someone still counts as a relationship, after all, if you relate to one another.