World of Warcraft

That’s right, it’s children’s week again and it’s time for you to step up to the plate and temporarily adopt an orphan of your choice! It’s particularly exciting for me since I’ve never done the children’s week event before, but I fully intend to this year. While I was kinda hoping to be able to take my orphan into glorious battle, that doesn’t appear to be possible.

From what I understand the whole process is pretty simple. Kid’s like to explore, so you’ll be leading them around various parts of Azeroth and/or Outland in the hope that the experience will make their lives a little less miserable. After all if you’re stuck at the oprhanage all day life can get pretty boring. Here’s where you’ll be taking them around Azeroth

* The bank in Darnassus (Alliance)
* The lighthouse in Westfall (Alliance)
* Jaina Proudmoore in Theramore (Alliance)
* Mor’shan Rampart (Horde)
* Lordaeron Throne Room (Horde)
* Cairne Bloodhoof in Thunder Bluff (Horde)

That’s not all though, Orphans in Outland need to see the world too! Here’s what they’d like to see:

# The Dark Portal
# The Exodar (Alliance)
# Silvermoon City (Horde)
# Caverns of Time

So what’s in it for you? Well if you’re looking for a sword of oprhan-awesomeness, I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed. You can, however, find some nice non-combat pets that are fairly humorous and entertaining. Everything from a rat and turtle to outland creatures like *ahem* Willy. A full list of the pets can be found here.

Ever since the very first legendary weapon was introduced from the Molten Core, players have wondered about the role of legendary items. Extraordinarily rare and powerful, and requiring a tremendous amount of time and effort to produce, you’ll usually see someone sitting around Ironforge wielding these from one of the “hardcore” raiding guilds. Since then, however, much of the game has changed, and the legendary weapon’s power greatly diminishes as time goes on.

This of course led to the question: why?

Many players felt that the items were so difficult and time consuming to attain that they should be purposely allowed to retain value even as the power of items inflates with expansions and other means of progression. Suggestions included a weapon upgrade quest that would lead a legendary weapon to be on par with top-quality level 70 gear now, for example. A Blizzard CM, Eyonix, was quick to shoot the idea down:

“Obtaining a legendary item is certainly a special and rare accomplishment, and one that I’ve yet to achieve. With that being said, we don’t want someone to get any item in the game and never have to replace it. Like all items, legendaries are meant to have their limit of power and players are meant to eventually find a potential improvement.

We currently have no plans to change our design philosophy and allow these items to be upgraded.”

From a lore perspective it’s a little disheartening, I’ll admit. Weapons like the Twin Blades of Azzinoth deserve a place of power, but unfortunately it doesn’t mesh well with game balance. All weapons of any type or quality will eventually be replaced, it’s simply the way in which these things work in MMOs. We’ll no doubt see the addition of new legendary weapons with the new expansion to replace the old. Personally I hope Frostmourne doesn’t show up since..all things considered..it devours a person’s soul..so as soon as someone picks it up they should lose control of their character forever. Obviously I don’t see that happening!