Breakfast Topic: Enhancing the Mobile Armory
by Ian Rosenfield 
Jun 14th 2011 at 8:00AM
The World of Warcraft Mobile Armory was recently updated with guild chat capabilities, in addition to its previous auctioning capabilities. It can do a fair amount, but what other in game actions would you like to be able to do from your cell phone?
Would you like to be able to craft items? Update your mods? Perhaps raid Argaloth, the Loot Piñata while on a bus? What about repairing or selling items to vendors? Equipping different sets of gear? Unequipping all of your gear and dancing on a mailbox? Fishing in game while you're out fishing on a lake? Would you like troll trade chat while you're stuck at Chuck E. Cheese's? Because if I must suffer then so must everyone!
Mayhaps you would like to create, modify and respond to calendar invites from the device you do all of your other calendaring. Send mail messages just as you would an email or text message. That way you can be prepared for when this situation comes up: "You got a pair of tickets to a Journey and Boston double headliner?! Oh I'll be there! Let me reschedule my raid real quick!" Or instead, do you yearn for the ability to /gkick anyone at a moment's whim from anywhere you might be?
What in game actions, dear readers, would you love to do when stuck in a line or on your commute?
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Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
scatmanman Jun 14th 2011 8:03AM
1st and gay topic
Alex Ziebart Jun 14th 2011 8:11AM
I was going to say "wow, two bans in one post!" but you also managed to double post your terrible comment and ruined it.
Thanks for that.
Still banned, though.
Maymer Jun 14th 2011 8:13AM
I would like to be able to do the super downvote for the main comment above. A downvote so powerful, that his comment doesn't merely become grey, it becomes a black hole, sucking all the other trollish comments that don't explain "why" they believe the topic in question is evidently displaying any indications of being homosexual, or simply think that someone's well thought out Breakfast Topic Submission should be reduced to shambles.
Amaxe Jun 14th 2011 10:40AM
I have to ask, why didn't you delete the post like all other "First" comments?
Literaltruth Jun 14th 2011 10:49AM
As a lesson to all that follow him.
Would be my guess.
Orkchop Jun 14th 2011 4:26PM
Perhaps because he accomplished the rare "Hat Trick of Fail"
scatmanman Jun 14th 2011 8:05AM
1st and gay topic
MattKrotzer Jun 14th 2011 8:10AM
I already think they're kind of overdoing it with the app and its capabilities. I wish they'd left the Armory app be what it was, and not rolled all the other new stuff in (guild chat, auction house) as part of the same app. It makes me want to use it less, since I'm not going to pay for those extra features, and it frustrates me to have them there.
Maymer Jun 14th 2011 8:17AM
I'm with you on this one Matt. I really like the ability to check someone's gear on the fly with my phone, but I don't want to get the app now that I would (I think) appear online in guild chat everytime I use it.
Now, if Blizz wanted to create another app to go with it, I wouldn't mind having a price checker for Justice/Conquest/Honor/Whatever the heck kinda points you want items. THAT would be awesome :)
sam Jun 14th 2011 8:39AM
Actually, you can set this in the settings under the line "Auto Sign In to Guild Chat". The three options it offers is "Never", "On App Launch" or "On Guild Chat". I've got it on the last in the list and works a treat.
That said, I'd like to have access to my calendar. That's the only shortcoming I can see at the moment.
Note: I use the Android version.
DarkWalker Jun 14th 2011 9:16AM
The only thing that might (emphasis on might) make me subscribe to the mobile access would be to be able to actually play the game on my Android phone. Otherwise, I will treat the Mobile Armory as if it didn't exist at all.
WoW+Armory is $18 per month. Too expensive, more so considering that I pay just $10 per month for LotRO, and for $20 per month I could be subscribed to all of SOE's MMO games at the same time (DCUO, EQ2, EQ, SWG, plus a few smaller or less known games).
BTW, EQ2 does have a Mobile app too. It has chat, mail, armory, and atlas functionality, and is free for subscribers.
Xxpat5xX Jun 14th 2011 9:29AM
@Darkwalker
Not trolling just want to point out that DCUO is $15 a month. But if you chose not to include it in your post and only included the good games then I understand your reasoning,
MattKrotzer Jun 14th 2011 9:36AM
If you don't want to troll him, maybe you should have read his full post, since he DID mention DCUO under his mention of SOE's games. Just sayin'.
Phantom Jun 14th 2011 11:43AM
I started trying it for the mobile AH feature, and now I use it all the time. It makes AH arbitrage a lot easier when you can checkbin a lunch and see all those underpriced trade goods that someone dumped at noon, which would be gone by the time I get home.
LynMars Jun 14th 2011 12:35PM
I would agree with overdoing the mobile armory, except that a good buddy of mine recently had to move back in with his folks for a few months due to losing his roommate and needing to save up money to go to grad school. His parents don't allow video gaming in their house. My friend wasn't willing to argue, so agreed to not game at all while living there to respect their wishes.
Then they took his computer away, thinking he'd try to game behind their backs anyway. He can't IM or otherwise connect with friends on the internet, except through his phone. Even writing and posting stories like he planned to do is right out.
The way we mainly chat with him now is by mobile armory if we don't call him (and he does show up as online via remote chat). His WoW account was subscribed through August anyway before all this, so he's taking advantage of that to chat with people and even arrange a visit with my roommate and me. When we rewrote our RP guild's rules, since we use an IC guild chat, we made sure to mention that some people use the Guild chat OOCly via remote access to keep in contact.
He's never on long, just enough to say hi, see how folks are, etc. since we can't keep in contact easily online. In this case, the extra features for the armory are very helpful to keep in touch.
ptay313 Jun 14th 2011 1:14PM
I actually love the mobile guild chat and auction house features. I travel a lot for work, and thus only have time/ability to play WoW on the weekends. I welcome the ability to repost my auctions and chat with my guildies when I don't have access to my home computer.
DarkWalker Jun 14th 2011 2:24PM
@Xxpat5xX:
Yep, DCUO alone is $15 per month (at least for whoever didn't subscribe to the Legendary plan when it was available; then it would be $30 per 3 months). Or the player could get a Station Access for $20, which includes a subscription for (cut and past from SOE page):
DC Universe™ Online, EverQuest® II, EverQuest®, Pirates of the Burning Sea™, PlanetSide®, Star Wars Galaxies™, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes™, EverQuest® Online Adventures™ and Free Realms™
(Two caveats: with the Station Access option, the player can only be logged to one game at a time, and the plan's page has not yet been updated with the $20 price announced at E3.)
So, I really think $18 per month for a single game (WoW+Mobile Armory) to be too expensive.
Tiek Jun 14th 2011 8:16AM
While you may not like the topic, instead of just coming out with a one word description of, offer some constuctive feedback instead. But that would require you to have to think and I guess that that is too much to ask of you. I would love to see where my guildies are and see achievements earned while in mobile chat. I see people say grats and I have to ask who got what achieve, its a mild annoyance and would make the app that much better for me.
AngelGabriel Jun 14th 2011 8:19AM
Well, I for one love and use the new features. It allows me to check in prior to raid time to let my team know if I'm going to be a minute late or whatnot.
As for new features, some were mentioned in the article: Vendoring items, equipping different item sets, trade chat, as well as your realid friends list, and crafting items.
How about being able to do a /who search and whispering non-guildies?
Why can't I see the notes on a player in my guild, and where they currently are, so I don't disturb them while they're in ZG?
Why can I seemingly not see the achievement announcements in guild chat? I always random "Grats" messages without the corresponding achievement.
Plainswander Jun 14th 2011 8:26AM
Huh...
Calendar access, full access would be great. As would mail access. They already gave us chat access, and being able to be in full contact while not in game would be handy for those "OhCrud" moments when we just can't get to the gaming rig, and nobody else is online.
And talent trees. No reason not to be able to mess with them offline either.
Being able to get fully raid prepped (repaired, supplied, reglyphed (if necessary), etc,...) would be nice too, but I think that's as far as I would take it. I don't think anything required travel outside cities, or actual combat type interactions with NPCs should be allowable from anywhere in game, otherwise you'll start crossing the line into WoW becoming a mobile gaming thing. And while I do love me some Angry-rolando-infinity-rage-bird-bird-blades, I don't think mobile is quite ready for the full WoW playbook yet.
Then again, the QQstorm if they let us do all this would be... well, it would be a great disturbance in the force.