[1.Local]: The battle over Battle.net

Did Halloween arrive a few weeks early? You might think so, given the surge of moaning and groaning emanating from [1.Local] – but wait, that appears to be the sound of players facing up to the impending Battle.net account conversion deadline. Blizzard announced this week that players need to convert their WoW accounts to Battle.net accounts by Nov. 11 in order to continue to be able to log into WoW. The lamentation from some quarters wafted up above the usual QQ chokepoints, even creeping into what one might imagine would have been upbeat posts about the free companion pet awarded to every player who converts an account.
In the face of this all this angst, at least a few readers were able to maintain a sense of humor and perspective. Quite a few players were pretty worked up over whether or not they would be able to successfully receive their Mr. Chilly pet if their accounts were currently inactive.
FifthDream: Grr, I hope it's there when I reactivate my account in a few days.
Raynier: Oh, don't worry ... The chick is in the mail!
Some players seemed more bothered by getting too many pets.
Starsmore: Maybe this is better served as a question for The Queue, but what's the point of sending this item to every character created on an eligible account, ever, AND making it Bind-to-Account, AND setting it so it remains after you use it? It's not like you have to trade it to your alts or something so they can have it. All this does is use up precious bag space, like the collector's edition pet collars. Man, I've deleted so many of those things ...
Valris: This way you will be able to send it to you future characters -- your goblin or worgen, for example.
And finally, others were disturbed that their pets weren't unique enough.
lolMYNEWAIMSNlol: Seriously? They made it the exact same pet as Pengu. So if you grinded out your rep with The Kalu'ak, that's one more tiny perk that everyone else has now.
Leonffs: In other news, if someone else is given the same piece of cake as you, it makes your piece taste bad.
| Concerned about Battle.net security? So many comments about Battle.net accounts ... So much account security paranoia ... So little time – and so little focus on what reader jfofla points out is a very smart tool for anyone who wants to protect his or her WoW account. jfofla: Before endless streams of paranoids post here ... Now is the time to get an Authenticator. No matter what your fears of account security due to using your email address for log in, the Authenticator will give you the ultimate security. |
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| Arthas spoilers (spoiler alert) Is that a helm I see before me? We think at least one reader has the whole Arthas storyline figured out in advance. (Spoiler alerts for this article – don't click over if you don't want Arthas storyline spoilers.) Zombiemold: Snape kills Arthas in 3.3!! |
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| To start a new rogue Rogues – you either love 'em, or you hate 'em. gryzemuis: If you want to level a rogue just for the fun of leveling, go ahead. Rogues are a great class to solo and to level up. I really enjoyed the leveling, although that was 4.5 years ago. But if you want to level a rogue to have a character to play end-game with, I strongly suggest you should not pick the rogue class. I know, I have played this rogue for 4.5 years. Pure DPS classes are the stepchildren of WoW. The whole game is about hybrids now. As a pure DPS class, you will always be considered "just a scrub" who should be happy that he is allowed to come to raids. If you don't believe me, check out the top 10 guilds on your server. I bet that most of those guilds have 1-2, maybe 3 of each pure DPS class. But they'll have 4+ druids, shaman, paladins and priests. I bet they even have more warriors and DKs than rogues. Sometimes they run with 6+ paladins and 6+ priests, but only 2 rogues. Rogues were doing fine DPS in Ulduar, thanks to the buff to our combat talent tree. But in 3.1, something terrible happened. T9.25 gear is hardly an upgrade from T8.25. In fact, getting three or less pieces of T8.25 is a downgrade. So any social rogue will let other classes get their T9.25 first. And our DPS will fall behind. In Ulduar, we had swords, maces, fist and offhand dagger. So after a few weeks, most rogues in a guild would have two new weapons. In ToC, there are only two axes dropping for us. That means that if you are unlucky, all or most of your rogues will run with Ulduar weapons. Then there is the issue of expertise (too much of it), which makes certain items useless to us. As a result, rogue DPS is not going up as fast as other classes. And when ICC comes, rogues will be doing sub-average DPS. And raid leaders will not bring more than one or two rogues to ICC until the whole instance is on farm. As a rogue, you are a one trick pony. We can't switch roles when we are bored with DPS. And we also can't enjoy the game more by getting off-spec sets. Since 3.2, I have gotten two upgrades, bracers which are worse than crafted ones and a BoE cloak. I bought two items with BoTriumph. I got all these EoT and EoC in my bag and nothing I can buy. If I had been a druid, I could have bought healing gear or boomkin gear. For a rogue, the game is a lot smaller. Rogues used to be great solo players. Not anymore. In TBC days, I had fun soloing Strat and Scholo in my blue gear (and purple later). I got all T0 sets, just for fun. I soloed recipes. At lvl60, I solo farmed a libram in Dire Maul for an enchant. I soloed GRRP-recipe in LBRS at lvl60. All great fun. But in WLK, there is nothing to solo. The lvl80 instances drop nothing; everything is reputation-based. And the lvl70 heroic dungeons are not soloable by a rogue. You will see druids and paladins solo ZG bosses. Warriors were soloing MC bosses at lvl70. DKs can solo well, too. But rogues can't solo anything anymore. We can do well for 20-30 seconds, thanks to evasion and maybe stuns. But if a fight lasts longer (and all 70-80 boss fights do), we can't solo anything because we can't heal. Really, play a hybrid class. The game will be a lot more versatile for you. You can set more goals. You can acquire more loot. You can solo more. You will get a lot more respect. Rogues might be needed for YS and Anub hard modes. But how many guilds do that ? 100 in the world, maybe? In a regular guild, rogues are a dime a dozen. And if you don't believe that, you should wonder why so many veteran rogues are leaving this game. More so than any other class. Not everyone agreed with the grim outlook. KT: Thanks for this! I previously leveled a rogue to about 30 and then had to give it up because I had too many alts and cleaned house. I really liked playing the rogue, but was getting rid of toons of the same race or races that do same zones at early levels. Now I'm planning on trying again when Cataclysm comes out with a goblin rogue so this is just on time. From what I remember, I had a hard time with the class until about level 20 and then I started having a blast with it. I love the stealth mechanism, it's a whole different way to play the game for me, and I used my alt and plan to use my new rogue to do different things that I don't do with other characters. |
The WoW.com staff struggled to make proper sense and context out of this terse communique sent in on the news tip line.
Name: [redacted]
URL: 123456
Subject: 123456
Related URL: http://123456
Michael Gray: 7 8 9 10 CONTACT
Adam Holisky: Sesame Street: 12 and pinball animation
Eddie Carrington: No. No. It was 1-2-3 Contact! Or Zoom!
Amanda Dean: Geeze, kids, it was 3-2-1 Contact.
We knew the reference was in there somewhere.
/join [1.Local]
/moan
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, [1.Local]






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sakirsha Oct 18th 2009 2:27PM
A lot of Euro-players are reporting their newly-merged battle.net accounts hacked, issues with logging into the game, switching between realms, and other difficulties with the new switchover. I'm surprised there's very little in this article about those (hopefully) far more important issues than whether or not a little penquin will be following your reactivated character around for five seconds until you're bored with it.
Kromus Oct 18th 2009 2:31PM
That screenshot and angle made him look very cute!! :)
I think battle.net has some convincing to do , I personally haven't had problems since last weeks upheaval but I've heard a lot of unfortunate stories so I think they need to up their a game at least a tiny bit.
Kurash Oct 18th 2009 2:48PM
"If you don't believe me, check out the top 10 guilds on your server. I bet that most of those guilds have 1-2, maybe 3 of each pure DPS class. But they'll have 4+ druids, shaman, paladins and priests."
This made me laugh. Part of the reason they may have a bunch of druids, shamans, paladins and priests is that those are the only classes in the game that can heal. Kinda need healers.
S?hrtogg Oct 18th 2009 8:31PM
Back in the day, all your druids were resto, all your paladins and priests were holy and all your warriors were prot. That meant there was plenty of room left for all dps to be filled up by rogues, hunters, mages and warlocks who are, naturally, all dps-specced.
Nowadays, every class has a viable dps spec doing all about equal dps. That's where the problem started: you don't really need the dps classes anymore. In stead of a rogue, you can bring a retadin or boomkin who both give a lot more buffs and utility such as combat res to your raid.
Warlocks are still kind of useful with their summons, health and soul stones; mages give food and intellect; hunters have misdirect and give the mandatory replenishment buff, so they get off on some usefulness, but rogues, no, you don't really *need* rogues for anything i'm afraid, except FoK interrupts, which has been nerfed or FoK poison applying: wound, mind numbing and anesthetic are useful sometimes. Sure they have either 4% phys dmg or 3% all crit debuff, but those are also applied by an arms warrior and ele shaman or any paladin respectively and even if you raid lacks them, that's not a big deal for most fights.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't ever bring rogues though, just that they don't really have any advantage over another class, so all you can do is profile yourself as a great player.
Magma Oct 18th 2009 2:52PM
I love how you put Valris's comment in here, despite the fact mine was rated up while his was at the normal level. Jealous? Yes I am.
Valris Oct 18th 2009 8:18PM
I'm so happy I didn't kill myself yesterday.
devilsei Oct 18th 2009 9:01PM
sore loser much?
Poxus Oct 18th 2009 2:59PM
I merged when this first started and I still haven't gotten a pet yet....
Kimyas Oct 19th 2009 6:04AM
Yeah I was wondering about the same, I converted quite a while back, and while others in my guild already got the Pet, I haven't
Jed Oct 18th 2009 3:11PM
lol i converted my account the very first day it was able to be converted like a few months ago maybe less. I havent been hacked! Oh Em Gee! A strong password is always good people. Yes the authenticator is nice for added security but i wouldnt go as far as to say it's a must.
Tethra Oct 18th 2009 3:57PM
It doesn't matter how strong your password is if you end up getting infected with a keylogger.
/got an authenticator after a guildie got hacked
tgcam Oct 18th 2009 3:18PM
Unless you like healing you probably wouldn't like shaman very much either
Felipe Oct 18th 2009 3:26PM
The real issue is that Pengu won't have demonic eyes anymore =(
Clydtsdk-Rivendare Oct 18th 2009 4:06PM
I personally don't really care about the battle.net thing 'cause I actually had to do the conversion at one point to log in (running wow on ubuntu is fun indeed). Personally, I'm more angry that there's no good PTR patch mirrors--my standard blizzard DLer never worked.... *hint-hint*
bdew Oct 19th 2009 3:43AM
The standart downloader is a torrent file appended to a minimal torrent client (the downloader) executable. You can just extract it and use any client that runs on your OS.
Jed Oct 18th 2009 4:30PM
/never been hacked played for 4.5 years... I bet a lot of people get hacked cause they try private servers... Or open attachments from people they do not know.. hell open attachments from people they do know. Those are the two main ways i know. Internet security starts with the user. We ourselves are the most important tool to not being infected with anything. So in a way using an authenticator is being lazy! lol
onetrueping Oct 18th 2009 6:14PM
Let's see. I run NoScript and Adblock Plus religiously. I have Avast Antivirus and Adware Anniversary Edition running their clients constantly. I never open mail from people I don't know, and I don't open attachments unless they have been scanned first. And I had a strong password.
I still got hacked.
The only real security against keyloggers is getting an Authenticator. The day I got hacked, I picked up two from the Blizzard store, and gave one to my fiance for her account. All of my stuff came back, as well, thanks to the help of Blizzard's GM staff.
As a side note, a level 80 rogue in a Stylin' Purple Hat and a tuxedo can do a fair number of the Icecrown quests wielding only (at first) a tournament lance or (after a bit) a quest-reward sword.
Vladeon Oct 18th 2009 7:00PM
Just so you know, running multiple antivirus programs/adware programs at the same time actually increases your vulnerability. Try to use an all in one program such as Avira Antivir as opposed to multiple programs from different publishers. I'm not kidding either, google it or something.
onetrueping Oct 19th 2009 5:25AM
I'm not running multiple overlapping programs, though. I'm running one program for antivirus (Avast), and one for adware/spyware (Adaware). Besides which, overlapping agents shouldn't be an issue. There's no real reason for it to be, unless they somehow identify each other as hostile processes (which these don't, thankfully).
SithLlenniuq Oct 18th 2009 4:50PM
I am not sure if this is the place to do this, and please forgive me for getting off topic if it isn't but I am at my last straw here.
I am 55% done with 79, 747558 XP left until 80.
I would like to join a guild (Stormrage US, A). That accepts a Hunter who wants to get geared and ready to raid. I have never raided before.
The problem I am having is like the credit catch 22, you have to have credit to get something on credit, and the only want to get credit is to have credit... same goes for Raiding... You have to have experiance raiding to get into raids and pugs, but you can't get it if no one ever lets you in.
If you want to take a look at me, Dataflake on Stormrage, US, Alliance.