The best of WoW.com: April 2009
by Allison Robert 
Dec 23rd 2009 at 8:00PM
Seriously?
Seriously.
A video guide to Grid: Grid is one of the best all-around mods you can use, but fairly intimidating to configure. Paxxz of Feathermoon walks you through it with a great video guide.
BRK fans post a good-bye: In the early part of the year, we lost both Phaelia and Big Red Kitty to RL demands. BRK fans put together a good-bye video for everyone's favorite Dwarf hunter. /salute BRK.
Are we being teased about the next expansion?: Swing and a hit!
Why we should expect an expansion announcement at BlizzCon: Another swing and a hit!
Officers' Quarters: Want loot? Buy us a server: Bribery -- the thinking-man's way to get ahead. Or not.
PETA to hold WoW rally to protest seal slaughter: PETA makes inroads into WoW. Players are not sure what this is meant to accomplish with ingame animals respawning like clockwork.
Official Ulduar cinematic revealed: This may or may not have been described as "so stuffed with win that pieces of win are dribbling out of it into little win puddles and spilling over into the Sewer of Awesome." Now with new, non-craptastic looks for major faction leaders! Player base wonders if this courtesy can be extended to their own characters.
Classy dual specs guide: Each of our class columnists wrote a guide to dual-speccing your own toon and the merits of particular combinations.
Varian Wrynn is right: Fantastic lore piece by Daniel Whitcomb on why the long-vanished king of Stormwind is so misunderstood. We generally think it's a bad idea to confine so much character motivation and backstory to comics and books more players will never see.
Activision-Blizzard is not Blizzard: Sacco brings some much-needed sanity to the discussion surrounding the corporate entity now known as Activision-Blizzard, and also lent a valuable insider's view of how the changeover impacted the people actually working for Blizzard.
Player receives developer item in the mail, one-shots Ulduar: We weren't sure what to make of this story about a player using a developer item to roflstomp Ulduar (then spanking new raid content) when we first started getting tips about it, but after some detective work on Alex's part, it became apparent it was true. Alex also figured out how it probably happened, and Lesley Smith interviewed the player at the center of it all.
15 Minutes of Fame: Dislocated but not disconnected (part 1) and (part 2): Lisa's 2-part interview with Lileya of EU-Lightbringer, a player who has to work through the myriad problems created by Ehlers-Danlos syndrome in order to play, struck a chord with many of readers.
Loot, rationality, and the Sunwell effect: "People are relentlessly rational...(and they) are quick to notice, evaluate, and adopt the most efficient means of character advancement." Given that Blizzard's design decisions have such an impact on social interaction ingame, how do they get the results they want?
2009's drawing to a close, and we're wrapping up the most interesting articles we've published all year, one day at a time. Join us every day for the next twelve days with this year's best of WoW.com!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Features
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brigwyn Dec 23rd 2009 8:09PM
Now there you gone and done it. Had to make all us hunter cry all over again reminding us of BRK's retirement. /sniff.
Fizzlethorpe Jan 13th 2010 8:09AM
What's amusing with this "Best of" is that it's just a tactic to get people to click on old links to boost visit numbers before the end of the year.
Mognet T Dec 23rd 2009 9:06PM
Or it is simply a way for us to go 'Oh hey! I remember that, that was crazy!" (like that old Blue post about the Greymane Wall, that takes me back).
A lot happened this year, and it it was quite exciting for WoW. I feel sorry that so many people assume WoW.com has ulterior motives for every little thing they post.
Fizzlethorpe Dec 23rd 2009 9:21PM
I'm not saying it's ulterior, I'm just saying it's a cheap way for them to get more visitors by reposting old links that we'll be all "oh hey, I remember that" about.
Radioted Dec 23rd 2009 11:17PM
I'm not saying they have ulterior motives, just that they have ulterior motives.
/sheesh
Adam Holisky Dec 23rd 2009 11:22PM
Don't get me wrong, hits are nice and everything, but that's not the reason we're doing these posts.
All of this started from a long discussion over several days about what the top WoW stories of the year are. At one point we were going to do just one post of the top news stories, then we were going to add an editorial top stories post, then we just decided to break that down month-by-month since there was so much compelling content this year. So here we are, on April.
If we were desperate for hits (we're not), we'd just post about Adrianne Curry and her camwhore antics.
(cutaia) Dec 24th 2009 11:05AM
*doesn't know who Adrianne Curry is*
*googles it*
Kaliazhul Dec 24th 2009 2:17PM
Adam is right. He doesn't need hits on this website. By mentionning Adrianne Curry, he probably send a lot of readers to google/wiki for a couple minutes!
So when is "15 minutes of fame: America's Next Top Model is a pussycat troll" to be published?
Dreyja Dec 23rd 2009 8:48PM
Man, and now it looks like Aspect of the Hare is going away too (very sorry to forget the author's name). This segment contained the news that mattered most to me. BRK left and I still feel a little rudderless. :(
Of course Martin Fury and the Peta thing still loom large in my memory of this year past.
ROB13 Dec 23rd 2009 9:15PM
We're also losing WoWHobbs. It's a sad year...very sad indeed...
Pike Dec 23rd 2009 10:15PM
Don't worry Dreyja, I'm not going anywhere =P
Superthrust Dec 23rd 2009 9:16PM
Anyone able to click on the "log in" link up top? It wont work for me. Also, i can't send any tips.
There are major realm issues on Aerie Peak and some other realms too. Disconnects, crashes, MAJOR lag.
Anyone know whats up?
Salem Dec 23rd 2009 11:56PM
I'm on Aerie Peak and haven't had any issues, never seen the sever go down so far since the patch. When did it crash? (What time)
Superthrust Dec 24th 2009 12:02AM
I was in Scholozar and it was loot lagging like crazy, then i DC'd and others said they did as well.
So, i logged an alt in redridge, and that dropped out too. there was talk about it in trade earlier, but then they went back to anal, murlocs and god knows what.
(i am Ohthatsatan)
RogueJedi86 Dec 23rd 2009 9:48PM
It's a shame on the Martin Fury scandal. Blizzard never admitted fault for their GM giving a GM item to a player, and Blizzard pretended it never happened. I wish they'd have spoken on it and at least admitted they screwed up. Instead they deleted all posts about Martin Fury and pretended nothing happened.
Thander Dec 24th 2009 12:47AM
It didn't really affect players much, so there was no need to make a big announcement. Also most player's (casuals) didn't even know about this. It would hurt Blizzard's image more by announcing it.
The other thing is admitting they screwed up would be somewhat sympathizing with the guy who exploited it.
RogueJedi86 Dec 24th 2009 12:50AM
But it was their fault. They gave a kid a gun, and he used it. It's awfully sleazy to screw up, then cover it up and pretend you didn't do anything. They could've came out looking honorable if they said "We messed up, but we dealt with those responsible for the mistake, and we're moving on". Instead they did "Ban, Ban, Ban, nothing to see here, move along".
Al Dec 24th 2009 8:11AM
Is there an answer they could have given that would have sufficed?
Accidental mail-out to random, random passes it along to friend. Friend then one-shots most of Ulduar and gets abusive when found out and banned. Seems self-explanatory.
Internal actions are internal.
zappo Dec 24th 2009 9:29AM
"It didn't really affect players much"
DId it affect me as "did my character die"? No, but that's the same as saying the hole in the ozone layer doesn't affect me because it's on the other side of the planet. Policy DOES affect you. Before this happened I was pretty assured that there wasn't really anything I could do wrong in the game as I'm a "law" abiding citizen of Azeroth. This episode showed that it's quite possible to get mailed some random thing by blizzard themselves and then get banned for using an in game item.
(cutaia) Dec 24th 2009 11:12AM
I wish I could forget it ever happened. Some of the comments people made on that article were just plain maddening.
*purposely not expressing my view on the subject to avoid re-igniting the debate*