167 – The Instance: We Swim In The Hallow End Of The Pool

3.3 Is Going To Be Bigger Than We Thought
Last week, we spent most of Rumors And Scuttlebutt talking about what players are telling us they’re dreaming about getting in World of Warcraft… someday, and since then we’ve gotten all sorts of interesting tidbits from the Public Test Realms, where Blizzard implemented build 10676 on Friday. We’ve had some looks into the future ourselves, and listeners have been sending us all sorts of notes and screenshots from within.

And have a look at the new shots of Tier 10!

Crank It Up And Rip The Gnome Off!
This week on The Instance, we’re doing something we’ve never done before right here in Rumors And Scuttlebutt: We’re going to talk about the best WoW-related songs of all time. Or at least, of the last five years or so. World of Warcraft has inspired hundreds upon hundreds of musical deeds by every kind of amateur musician – parodies, style remakes, and pure original compositions. We love the WoW-related music scene.

In no particular order:

The prolific Ryan Myers, who has cranked out parodies like “Ninja Raiders” and “Clint Felwood”. Our favorite tune by him is “Action Bars“, a parody of “Handlebars” by Flobots.

One of the best pure singers making WoW parodies is known by the name Dax. He’s the guy who put out “Puggin’ Kara” last year – it was a re-working of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” – and his best song is one of our favorites. It’s also based on a Johnny Cash song – this one is “Walk The Line”, only Dax’s version is called “Aggro Is Mine”.

Way back when The Instance was still counting its’ first 20 episodes, and raiders were running Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, a musician named Cranius burst only the WoW music scene with a heavy complaint song called “Big Blue Dress.” He’s the guy who last year, released his best song about WoW, called “Darrowshire”. It recalls the sad story of that lost town in what is now Eastern Plaguelands.

Ever since the folks from Stone Falcon Productions turned out “The Ballad Of The Noob”, everyone in the WoW music scene have just waited for their next musical works. They’ve got several songs available at their website, which we have linked in our show notes, such as “Enrique’s Dance Party” and “Feel The Burn”, but “The Ballad Of The Noob”, which is almost a parody of “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash – but not quite – is still their best.

There are dozens and dozens of parodies of Weird Al Yankovic songs that include WoW lyrics, and most of them are… unfortunate. But sometimes a couple of kids in their dorm room decide to take on a truly difficult one, and the gold standard is a duo who call themselves Pizza And Fries, who changed Weird Al’s “Your Horoscope For Today” into “That’s The World Of Warcraft That You Play“.

Summergale is an unusual musical artist in this rundown, given that she’s a she. You might recall a song by Summergale called “Hard Like Heroic”. Her best song so far came out just this year, and it’s a collaboration with the aforementioned Cranius, and it’s a parody of “The Way I Are” by Timbaland and Keri Hilson called… “Ulduar”.

And our final song tonight is our favorite, but we can’t play the whole song for you. That’s because it’s not open licensed. But you can buy it on iTunes, and you won’t be among the first to do so. We’re of course talking about the most commercially successful WoW-related song of all time, “Do You Want To Date My Avatar” by Felicia Day and Jed Whedon, with the cast of The Guild.

Town Cryer
It’s all calls from listeners this week.

Drop Of The Week
Ren Faires Just Got A Little Bit Creepier, If That’s Even Possible

First it was TavernCraft, who released new WoW beer steins just in time for you to… drink something. Now we get word that Museum Replicas, the company that so many role-players turn to for long boots and cloaks and fair maidens’ dresses… has teamed up with Windlass Studios and Blizzard to offer a line of life-size tabards and banners. They’re 100% cotton, custom dyed & embroidered with some of the most iconic symbols and heraldry from the game, and they’re this year’s must-have accessory for the WoW player who wants to be spotted from all the way out in the parking lot at Medieval Village.