Filed under: Goblin

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Grandpappy Frostheim would probably say that we, the mass of WoW players, have more options, features, sparkly things, humdingers and thing-a-ma-jigs to help us play than ever before -- and he would be right. But I don't believe that should mean there aren't more features and upgrades to our interface and experience that would improve things even further.

Just in the past year or so, Blizzard has added a ton to our interfaces, including an improved built-in quest helper, built-in power auras, and the remote auction house. These all are great "quality of life" improvements for the majority of players. The remote auction house is one of my favorite new features, as playing the AH is as fun as many other parts of the game for me. I had heard rumors before the remote auction house was released that you'd be able to use your crafting professions remotely as well. This would have enabled me to buy on the AH, craft gear or cut gems, and then sell my finished product, all remotely. I'm sure this would bring me a lot closer to being gold-capped. Oh well, I can dream, can't I?

Most everyone has some idea they feel could be added to improve the gaming experience. Are you one of those still hungering for the dance studio, or is there some other feature you think WoW really needs?

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

This is a story about a goblin named Mida -- Boss Mida <Her Tallness>, to be precise. Boss Mida is no ordinary NPC. Mida was born from a full-throttle player campaign of epic roleplaying enthusiasm -- a rally to bring a female Trade Princess to the Bilgewater goblins for Cataclysm.

The idea of a female Trade Princess sprang from the imagination of Sarpa of Moon Guard (US) early this year. The concept centered around the idea of a non-elven female leader who was "a wheelin' and dealin' woman who would put the 'B' of 'business' back into Bilgewater and whose character was not a foil to a more famous male character (Jaina and Arthas, Tyrande and Malfurion, Sylvanas and Arthas)," according to fellow Mida campaigner Dziewanna of Wyrmrest Accord (US). "The thread reached 391 pages before the old forums closed, spawned a community of players who come up with ideas like exploding robot squirrels and shredders in tuxedos," she continues, "and Blizzard was awesome enough to put the character our minds came up with in game: Boss Mida, <Her Tallness>. You might have seen her in the goblin slums already."

The Mida for Trade Princess story rolls onward with a brand new roleplaying guild on Wyrmrest Accord dedicated to overthrowing Gallywix and bringing Mida to power. "Explosives and engineers will be involved," warns Dziewanna (now Snuffit the goblin). Sound fun? We thought so, too -- so we got in touch with Sarpa (now Roulette, the goblin warlock), the player who made a forums post that ignited the Trade Princess fire among the many other players who helped build this roleplaying story.

Three years ago, I read this article by Annalee Newitz on sexual dimorphism in WoW, promptly filing it away in my head as one of those interesting quirks about the game and games in general. What really struck me at the time were the alpha pictures of trolls and tauren. While I like the current tauren female model, I'm not terribly enamored of troll ladies, if only because 95 percent of them (not an actual statistic) seem to choose the same blandly "pretty" face. Alpha troll women seemed to share a lot more of the troll male's features, with more pronounced tusks, sharper profiles and more of a hunch like the men. In general, I found these alpha models fascinating.

Also interesting to note was that this trend goes both ways: when blood elves debuted, the males were much closer to the females and were beefed up in The Burning Crusade beta. As Annalee Newitz pointed out, the other race that debuted in BC, the draenei, are extremely dimorphic; males are bigger and more massively muscular than orcs, while their females are far less mesomorphic. What interested me, at least so far as the tauren and troll model changes went, is that players complained that the tauren and troll women weren't to their liking, which most likely had an influence on the design of draenei and blood elves.

Now, with Cataclysm, we have two new races to consider. How do the worgen and goblins stack up on the dimorphism scale?

This article is part of our Countdown to Cataclysm series, preparing you for Cataclysm launch one day at a time.

Deathwing's return and the subsequent shattering of the world have driven the Bilgewater Cartel goblins of Kezan into the embrace of the Horde. With Cataclysm quickly approaching and goblins finally becoming a playable race in World of Warcraft, you're going to need all the goblin knowledge you can before rolling up one of these clever characters.

Cryptozoics' posterous blog has been nothing short of an amazing wealth of information about Worldbreaker, the newest expansion for the WoW Trading Card Game. Loads of new abilities, cards, allies, heroes and more are being shown off, and for TCG fans, all of this new stuff looks to be pretty dang fun.

In addition, worgen and goblin allies have been introduced! Each new race has a cool new ability associated with it: worgen allies with the Aberration keyword cannot be dealt non-combat damage, and goblins allies with the Time is Money keyword can use exhaust abilities as soon as they enter play. These new allies, as well as all of the revealed information, are bringing some fascinating new play mechanics to the trading card game.

Check out the new worgen ally Rolan Phoenix, along with a new version of Magni Bronzebeard, here. The new goblin ally Exxi the Windshaper, along with orc mage Ceraka and Cairne, Earthmother's Chosen, can be previewed here.

Yet another frabjous day for those of you who are planning to get your goblin or worgen to level 85 as fast as a bullet train with a rocket strapped to the back and a wormhole generator up front. "That's very fast," you might be saying. Well, so will your goblin or worgen, once he gets hold of all that sweet, sweet Recruit-A-Friend candy. Calloo and callay both, man.

Lylirra - Will RAF work with worgen/goblins?

New goblin and worgen characters will indeed be eligible for Recruit-A-Friend benefits including increased experience gain and grantable levels. As we've no current plans to modify the Recruit-A-Friend program at this time or increase the level range for which the benefits apply, goblin and worgen characters (as with all other characters) will only be able to receive the in-game bonuses up to level 60.

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This excites me because I'm trying to lure back a few old friends for Cataclysm, and I'm pretty sure some RAF action could smooth that process along. Lylirra points out that this is all contingent on said goblins or worgen qualifying for the process, that there's no plan to advance the benefits past level 60, and that there will be no realm-first goblin or worgen (or indeed any race) to 85 achievements any longer. So level your worgen friends with alacrity, as fast as Running Wild after a sugar rush.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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Short and sweet here, folks: Blizzard has announced that race changes to goblins and worgen will be available immediately upon Cataclysm launch. That's 12:01 a.m. PST Dec. 7. Additionally, there will no longer be any achievements for being the first of your race to hit level 85; the achievements are now class-only.

Great news for people who want to switch from their terrible male night elf druid into a dashing (literally) male worgen druid, or basically anyone who's tired of playing a troll of either gender.

Xfire user Zilas just uploaded what we believe to be the cinematic detailing the end of the goblin starting zone Kezan. Frankly, it's amazing. There are spoilers for the end of the first part of the goblin starting experience, so be warned.

Blizzard has, once again, topped itself in terms of cinematic quality and expression outside of its general pre-rendered cinematics. Hopefully the worgen transformation movie is just as awesome.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the humidity is down to a comfortable percentage. It is truly a beautiful day for a raid. What do you say we break out the picnic tables, slam down a Great Feast and then fire up the ol' goblin barbecue. Wait, what? Goblin barbecue?

Datamined from the next beta patch, engineers will now be able to craft a Goblin Barbecue, an engineering version of the chef's best friend, the Great Feast. Giving well fed group and raid members 60 stamina and another 60 points in another useful stat, this barbecue promises to be delicious in all the right ways. In my opinion, engineering has been getting some amazing love this expansion, truly cementing the profession as the utility-focused trade. I cannot wait for the graphic to show up. Sing it with me, engineers: Engineering, best profession.

This twitter developer chat was focused on the recent beta talent tree overhaul announced for Cataclysm. Lots of information came out including drastic changes to the paladin class. A lot of the answers had to do with the fact that a couple classes aren't very done in the current beta build that everyone has been poring over.

Some highlights:

• paladins will be using a new Holy Power resource system in addition to mana
• all death knights will gain Runic Empowerment via trainers for all specs
• no planned hard cap for the new Mastery stat
• still no guild housing

The full categorized round-up is after the break.

Sure, the worgen are badass and all that. When Cataclysm breaks, we'll probably see a wave of rerollers populate the Alliance with werewolves the way Burning Crusade glutted the Horde with pretty boys (and girls). The worgen have so much angst and goth sensibilities, and Gilneas evokes that whole aura of Victorian doom and gloom that the new race is guaranteed to attract a tidal wave of players to roll characters from scratch or, sometime in the future, pay for a race change. Heck, even I plan to roll a worgen and level it through the new starting zone.

But what really excites me are the goblins. Sure, they're short, green, and by any measure pretty ugly, but man, they appear to be a total riot. We've never seen anything like this before. Personally, I think the whole deal with worgens is just too emo. But goblins? Insanity. Goblins are hedonistic, money-grubbing, self-destructive and completely, off-the-deep-end wacky. They have a pleasure palace in Azshara. A pleasure palace. With a swimming pool. If you thought starting areas on RP servers had some interesting RP going on, you might be shocked at the kind of RP that a freaking pleasure palace with a swimming pool invites. Goblins aren't nice guys. They're abrasive and offensive by design. I can't wait to play one.

NSFW Warning: Some work environments may not like these jokes.

The Cataclysm floodgates have been opened, and the torrent of information coming is awesome! Here come the goblin sound files for goblin male and female /flirt and /silly jokes and flirts. A lot of it is what you would expect from goblins -- money, wheeling and dealing, bondage jokes and... wait, what? Some of this stuff is pretty racey, and I doubt it will stay in game like the infamous "kill two dwarves" troll emote. Nonetheless, here are your goblin sound emotes.

More clips are after the break.

They already get self-cleaning public toilets, over a thousand distinct kinds of cheese and Kelly Brook. This time around, Europeans get more cool things by way of J!NX, those purveyors of geek couture, who have released three new World of Warcraft shirt designs exclusive to Europe. One design features a poster promoting an arena match between a gnome and a tauren in the style of a bullfight. It's nice and funny, but probably not something I'd mind not being available in my region. On the other hand, the two other designs feature the upcoming new races of Cataclysm -- the worgen and goblin, complete with claw scratches for the former just to add a little more badassness. If you're a fan of the promotional art for these two new races, this probably isn't good news if you live in one of the other six continents.

For the Europeans, the shirts are available for ordering at €17.99 to €20.99, depending on your size. The shirts are available only in black in both men's and women's sizes. For everyone else -- or everyone else in the United States, anyway -- get back at the Europeans by walking into a nearby Hot Topic and pick up an exclusive Save the Murlocs shirt. Sorry Asians, Africans, Australians, South Americans and even that one lone dude living in Antarctica -- we'll have to make do with all the basic stuff.

Here's some good news for everyone planning to roll a goblin or worgen, or even a human hunter or troll druid, when the expansion hits: Your heirlooms will still work, but only until level 80. At the recent Cataclysm press event, Blizzard confirmed that heirlooms from the Wrath era will still work for new characters in the Cataclysm era, and specifically even for goblins and worgen. Since you earned them, you should still get to use them.

However, they also note that the heirlooms will only work up to level 80. At level 80, you'll have to start using new heirlooms that will be added in Cataclysm itself. So go ahead, buy that Bloodied Arcanite Reaper for your new holy cow or worgen warrior; it'll still work just fine, at least until you get level 80.

Since the Friends & Family phase of Cataclysm testing is currently active, it only makes sense that the private forum for testers is also up and running, as it has been in expansions past. And with that forum comes new icons for players who've rolled goblins and worgen! To the right, check out the basic (pre-85) icons for male and female goblins and male worgen, straight from the official forum art assets.

Unsurprisingly, and hilariously, female worgen still don't exist, even in forum icon form. Unconfirmed rumors state that the model isn't even in the alpha client at this point. Wonder what the holdup has been for these past nine months.

Or maybe this is just a special icon for female worgen shadow priests. That must be it.