WoW Insider

WoW Insider Show Episode 121: So long and thanks for all the Fah-jords

(Mike Schramm) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:30:00 EST

Our podcast reached the end of part one last weekend, as both Turpster and I announced that we'd be leaving the show. But we didn't let it become a sad affair -- Matthew Rossi and Chase Christian both joined us for some Warcraft discussion (including when it's ok to votekick someone, and lots of Battered Hilt discussion), and we finally were able to have one of our favorite guys stop by: Scott Johnson from The Instance podcast. It was a great show, and as usual, you can tune in at all of the links below.

Thanks again for everything -- even though Turpster and I are moving on, the podcast will continue, so be sure to come back and see what they brew up for you. But it's been a heck of a ride these past two-plus years, and we've had measurable metric tons of laughs and fun together. Thanks so much for listening and chatting with us and all the emails and excitement. Enjoy the show, and don't forget to grab your sword and fight the Horde.

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Filed under: Podcasts, Podcasting, Fan stuff, WoW Insider Business, Virtual selves, WoW Insider Show

WoW Insider Show Episode 121: So long and thanks for all the Fah-jords originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW Insider Show tomorrow at 3:30pm Eastern

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST

My last episode of the WoW Insider Show is on the air tomorrow afternoon -- it'll be sad (I really love doing this show for you all), but hopefully it won't be too maudlin. Fortunately both Matthew Rossi and Chase Christian have agreed to join us, and of course Turpster will be on with us as well -- whenever the T is around, you know it'll be a good time. We'll be talking about the most popular stories in Warcraft for the past week, including the arrival of Winter Veil, patch 3.3.0a and all of the other hotfixes this week, and just because I think it's interesting, we'll talk about the Battered Hilt as well.

And as usual, we'll answer your emails and chat live with all of the folks in the chatroom. You can email us any time of night or day at theshow@wow.com, and you'll be able to listen in to the show on the feed over on Ustream itself, or right after the break below. Please do join us, should be fun.

Continue reading WoW Insider Show tomorrow at 3:30pm Eastern

Filed under: Podcasting, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, WoW Insider Show

WoW Insider Show tomorrow at 3:30pm Eastern originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Farewell and thank you, WoW.com

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

I've told this story a few times before: I actually started out on WoW.com as a comment troll. A few years back, Jennie Lees was the lead blogger here, and she posted something silly about a wallpaper or a plush doll, I don't remember. I was also reading the forums at the time, and Blizzard had just dropped new priest patch notes. "Why are you posting this junk," I commented angrily, "when the priest notes just dropped?" She was nice about it -- she actually emailed me and said that the priest updates post was coming soon. And I felt so bad about it, I never activated the comment. But a little while after that, when WoW Insider posted that they were looking for some new writers, I applied, and said that I was sorry for that comment, but that I was working on becoming a writer and could help out with posting on the site when needed.

When I started writing for WoW Insider (now WoW.com, obviously), I was working retail in Chicago, writing part-time in the evenings. The site itself got only a few thousand hits a month, with one or two weekly features and maybe ten comments per post. Now, over three years later, I'm a fulltime freelance writer, I've been to three BlizzCons, I've written over 1.7 million words in over 3,300 posts here about everything in Azeroth, and the site itself rivals some of the best blogs on the Internet, routinely garnering millions of hits a month. I helped build this site with my own two hands, and while I definitely can't claim all the credit (there was and is a huge team of people who keep this thing running), it's with a fair amount of sorrow that I'm here to tell you today will be my last day on WoW.com.

Continue reading Farewell and thank you, WoW.com

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, WoW Insider Business, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard

Farewell and thank you, WoW.com originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Quest: Stealing from Icecrown

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

WoW in an Hour really enjoys doing the new raid weekly quest -- nice raid rewards, under an hour of play.
Chill of the Grave has some great suggestions for Death Knight gear to be found in the new 5-mans.
HTFTMFW takes you through quick strategies for the first four bosses in Icecrown.
Starnaglethron has a declaration of love for the Dungeon Finder (which most of you would probably echo).
And finally, Pike has some bad news for you Glyph of Bestial Wrath addicts. There's a new glyph in town and he'll up your DPS.

Click here to submit a link to TDQ

Filed under: Hunter, Instances, Raiding, Death Knight, The Daily Quest

The Daily Quest: Stealing from Icecrown originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 2

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

Continue reading WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 2

Filed under: Instances, Raiding, Bosses, BlizzCon, Wrath of the Lich King

WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 3

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

Continue reading WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 3

Filed under: Patches, Fan stuff, Blizzard, PvP, Expansions, Raiding, Lore, Leveling, BlizzCon, Cataclysm

WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 4

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

Continue reading WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 4

Filed under: Patches, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King

WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009, part 4 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

What a year it's been for the World of Warcraft. We've had three big content patches, a BlizzCon, an expansion announcement, and perhaps out of all of the five years this game has been running, this was the year with the most surprises. A few things players thought would never happen (including faction changes) finally did, and we saw quite a few new tricks from Blizzard, both in terms of game features and in the way they run the game at large. 2009 was also a year of expectation: we thrilled to leaks and rumors about Cataclysm, and all year long, we looked forward to the villian that has been set up for us ever since 2008's Wrath release: the Lich King himself.

As we've done for the past couple of years, let's take a look back at the most popular stories of 2009 here on WoW.com. We'll start first with number 10, which also came as a surprise to many players, right after the break.

Continue reading WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009

Filed under: Patches, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Instances, Leveling, BlizzCon, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm

WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook vs. World of Warcraft

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

They both have millions of users across the world. They both have made and broken friendships and relationships, and they both have raised millions if not billions of dollars for their respective companies. And chances are that they're both so popular even your grandma knows about them. Gamasutra has written an interesting post comparing both World of Warcraft and Facebook of all things, and they say that the two are more alike than you might think: both enable you to create an identity, and use that identity to interact with others, and both give you a wide variety of options to do so (in WoW, you can slay dragons together, and on Facebook, you can tag pictures or post on walls). Gamasutra wants to get to the center of where exactly the interactivity lies, and in doing so, figure out what makes Warcraft a game, and Facebook a network.

One major difference is in the interface -- obviously, WoW is wrapped in a fantasy world, so that in between all of the socializing, you're also fighting the Scourge or the Burning Crusade. Facebook has games, but it doesn't have that overarching narrative. WoW also rewards group teamwork and coordination, while Facebook leaves collaboration to its own rewards. And of course the cost is another big difference: WoW is still a subscription game, while Facebook pays in other ways. But the amount of similarities between the two are pretty fascinating. And comparing the two, as Gamasutra does, really makes you think about just what interactivity means, and how two apparently very different types of interactive media aren't that far apart after all.

Filed under: WoW Social Conventions, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Forums

Facebook vs. World of Warcraft originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phat Loot Phriday: Zod's Repeating Longbow

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST

Reader Matthias C. wrote in with a special request to see this item here, so here you go.

Name: Zod's Repeating Longbow (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Epic Bow
Damage/Speed: 541-887 / 2.80 (255 DPS)
Attributes:

+34 Agility, +51 Stamina
On equip: Your ranged attacks have a 4% chance to cause you to instantly attack with this weapon for 50% weapon damage. This one's interesting -- the tooltip actually says the chance to hit. It's not the first time that's happened, but plenty of tooltips will say "a chance of" proccing rather than mentioning the actual percentage.

Gallery: Phat Loot Phriday

Continue reading Phat Loot Phriday: Zod's Repeating Longbow

Filed under: Hunter, Items, How-tos, Odds and ends, Phat Loot Phriday

Phat Loot Phriday: Zod's Repeating Longbow originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More options for party communication

(Mike Schramm) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

Our buddy Rufus from the WoW LJ brings word of a sneaky change in the recent patch: raid warnings (those warnings that pop up in the middle of your screen, created by typing "/rw" while leading a raid) no longer work in parties. Apparently you have to be in a raid to actually toss off a warning. Of course, that could have happened before this patch, but at any rate, it's in the game now. No more /rw in party chat.

Not only is it a bummer because some people used to use it constantly to keep party members in line, but this also means that there's one less means of communication between all of these random parties forming out there on the realms. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone would know the fights and chat would be enough to make sure everyone was on the same page (or depending of your vision of a perfect world, everyone actually uses the in-game voice chat -- a quick survey of our staff here presumes that it works in cross-realm PuGs, but given that I've never actually seen it used on the live realms by anyone, who knows?), but we're hardly running instances in a perfect world. Sometimes chat is not the best way to get a complicated boss fight organized and ready.

Continue reading More options for party communication

Filed under: Fan stuff, Walkthroughs, Odds and ends, Add-Ons, Instances

More options for party communication originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Breakfast Topic: Make it all BoA

(Mike Schramm) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST

Gnomeaggedon happened to post something so interesting the other day that I thought it merited a bit more discussion. He actually posted it almost as an afterthought (I guess he's moving in RL -- good luck with that), but it's quite an idea just the same: "Make it all BoA," he says. Blizzard has added in some more Bind-on-Account items, and most recently made it possible for BoA items to go across factions. But Gnomeaggedon says it's time to stop messing around: mounts, emblems, tier and arena gear, currencies, vanity pets, reputation items, anything that would be useful across toons should be able to be traded freely between them. Why, he asks, should there be limits on which character you decide to play with?

And actually, while the possibilities there might make some players' heads spin (imagine how many badges you could earn on your geared-out pally for your newly 80 warlock), I think that Blizzard is probably headed that direction. They may not want to open the floodgates completely, but look at where we've come -- we just heard Frank Pearce say the other day that faction changes are a direct result of Blizzard wanting to give players more choice of who to play with, so wouldn't it follow that we'd eventually get more choice about which characters we use? You have to think that we'll see more and more BoA items, so why not just skip to step ten and open it all up? What do you think?

Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Breakfast Topics, Making money

Breakfast Topic: Make it all BoA originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shipping costs removed from Authenticators

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST

We'd already noticed last week that the Authenticators in the US store had gone free shipping, but now official updates on Blizzard's site say it's true in the EU as well. American authenticators still cost $6.50, but you no longer have to pay anything extra for shipping, and EU authenticators have had their price dropped to €6.99. That's still over $10, but they're at least cheaper than they used to be. There's a drawback, however: apparently they went with cheaper shipping, because you can no longer track shipments of authenticators, and shipping will take a little longer (up to 15 business days in the US). Which makes sense, given that you want these things as cheap as possible.

Ancilorn answers some other Authenticator questions as well -- there's no discount for buying multiple units at all; what you see is what you get. And while the only authenticator for purchase at the moment is the Corehound branded unit, there may be more art available in the future, and of course you don't need a Corehound-branded Authenticator to get the Corehound Pup pet. Any Authenticator will do that, including any of the authenticators made for mobile phones, as long as it stays attached to your account. Whew -- that should answer all the questions anyone has. As we said the other day, if you don't have one of these yet, it's probably time to look in to getting one. Not only will your account be more secure, but you'll get that free pet as well.

Filed under: Items, Blizzard, Making money, Account Security

Shipping costs removed from Authenticators originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Guild sells out for Christmas

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST

It was just on Sunday that we first heard about a Guild Christmas special, and now here it is. The Guild gang have decided that the web series thing isn't really happening with the money, so they're taking the advice of commenters and selling out with six different pieces of merchandise, one for each Guild member. They're actually pretty funny, from a Codex "answer Orb" to a talking Tinkerballa doll to a Vork unbreakable bank (unfortunately, all of the items have been recalled for various reasons). There's some cool guest stars in the mix as well -- see if you can spot Heroes' James Kyson Lee (in a Delorean!) and our buddy Alex Albrecht, along with a few other familiar faces.

Good stuff, and man, The Guild crew is getting really good at making some quality video. No word whether these will show up on Xbox Live at all (they're actually out now on YouTube, so this may just be something the guys did for fun, outside of the Microsoft agreement), but you can watch them all right now above. Merry Christmas, guildies! All I really want for Christmas is a Vork unbreakable bank -- in these troubled times, it's really the safest thing to do with your hard earned money.

Like The Guild? We do, too! We've got all the episodes of season 3 posted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and episode 12 above. We've also chatted with all of the folks at BlizzCon, including Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh, and Jeff Lewis and Michele Boyd. And as if that wasn't enough Guild, here's the liveblog of their panel, and the guys were nice enough to stop by our meetup as well. Stay tuned for more Guild here on WoW.com!

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Guilds, Blizzard, Humor

The Guild sells out for Christmas originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Guildwatch: We're over applications, too

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

The image above is a little tough to read, but you can probably get the gist: someone posts on the forums that secretly, he's been taking things from the guild bank and selling them off on the AH to make money for himself. He posts on his alt, supposedly, but whoops: he leaves his forum signature up. And the very next post is someone from the guild saying he's been caught red-handed, with a gkick imminent. Moral? Steal if you want, we guess, but never, ever tell. Or at least don't use your forum sig when posting on your alt.

Much more drama, downed, and recruiting news in this week's Guildwatch, which starts right after the break. We are super low in the buffer for tips, so please be sure to let us know about your guild's action in Icecrown, any recruiting you're doing, or any drama you see on the forums by sending us a quick email at guildwatch@wow.com. Thanks! Enjoy this week's column.

Continue reading Guildwatch: We're over applications, too

Filed under: Ranking, Guilds, Instances, Humor, Raiding, Guildwatch, Bosses

Guildwatch: We're over applications, too originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST

Yesterday, Bornakk said clearly that the Battered Hilt drop that starts the Quel'delar questline was dropping at the right rate, which is much less than when the patch first hit. And then of course, in last night's fixes, they went ahead and increased the drop rate anyway. He also claimed there were no plans to make it BoP, but who knows what'll happen in the future? For now, however, you can still buy and sell the quest item for quite a bit of gold. We'll have to see where the price eventually ends up -- on the staff here, we've seen anything from 8,000g to over 23,000g, and Twitter tells us that people are paying an average of around 12k or so, going up to as high as 30k (or even shady real money offers in online classified ads). Our own Matt Low has actually seen the drop three different times, and lost every roll. It drops off of any of the mobs in the Heroic versions of the Frozen Halls 5-mans, and as Bornakk says, any class can use it to come up with a pretty solid weapon, so the competition will probably keep the price high, depending on where the drop rate ends up.

The silver lining, if you really want one, have terrible luck, and don't ever expect to have all that money, is that the price will probably go down eventually. Bornakk says that as people move up into Icecrown and start picking up weapons that are even better than the sister blade, demand is likely to drop off a bit. But he also says that Blizzard does want this to be a special and relatively rare item, so you'll still have to probably either be lucky or ready to grind it out. Good luck -- I'm out there searching for one with you.

Filed under: Items, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Instances, Quests, Wrath of the Lich King

The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Updated Armory app features Find an Upgrade, saved talent builds

(Mike Schramm) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST

A few readers (thanks!) sent us notes pointing out that Blizzard has updated the Mobile Armory app for the iPhone. The new version, 1.1.0, features a streamlined character selection screen, the ability to save and load custom talent builds (though unfortunately it doesn't look like there's any way to bring these into the game automatically -- you just have to choose points the same way), in-game reputations on character profiles, and a number of other bugfixes and user interface improvements.

The one big feature is that "Find an Upgrade" now works on the mobile app -- you can search directly in the app for a gear upgrade for any equipment slot on your character. That's a nice bonus; it means that while you're sitting on the bus with your iPhone, you can look through your gear, and figure out what you're going to be upgrading to in that waist slot the next time your guild heads up into Icecrown. I'd still like to see a little more integration with the game itself (a few MMO companies have hinted that they're pushing for more integrated iPhone tie-ins), but since the app is called Mobile Armory, and yes, is still free, I can't complain too much.

Filed under: Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King

Updated Armory app features Find an Upgrade, saved talent builds originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Felicia Day says The Guild comic is coming in Spring 2010

(Mike Schramm) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST

Felicia Day told us back at BlizzCon that she was going to go undercover for a little while as The Guild's latest season wrapped up, but undercover for this woman seems to mean that she's only in two TV shows and prepping for a comic book release. She showed up in last night's Lie to Me episode, singing, and in this interview over at Newsarama from the Video Game Awards with Sandeep Parikh (who himself just showed up in Tiki Bar TV -- slightly NSFW, language) she says she's still working on the unfortunately canceled Dollhouse as well. So that's where Eliza Dushku got her addiction from.

She also says that the Dark Horse published Guild comic book is due out in spring of next year -- Jim Rugg is working on the art right now -- and fans of The Guild may even get a little Christmas present from the show and Microsoft. We'll keep an eye out for that for sure. So even though we're in between seasons (and we assume that season 4 is upcoming next year, even though we haven't heard an official announcement on that yet), there's lots of Guild goodness to go around.

Filed under: Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Guilds, Humor, Interviews, Comics, Fan art

Felicia Day says The Guild comic is coming in Spring 2010 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A chat with Check Six, WoW Arena team

(Mike Schramm) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST

The ~~official~~ Microsoft Sync blog (apparently the blog isn't official -- they fooled me) has posted a video interview (which you can see above) with Check Six, one of the high level World of Warcraft Arena teams showing up in tournaments lately. The video is somewhat tame, but that actually works in its favor -- this high-level Arena play can be complicated and hard to follow, and so simplifying it a little bit actually makes it more palatable. You high level Arena players won't get to hear their opinions on the latest builds or balance tweaks, unfortunately (for that, you can check out our Coliseum column), but the rest of us can at least put some faces to one of these team names floating around, and hear a little bit more about how these guys run these tournaments.

They've been playing together for about two or three months, and they practice quite a bit: together, they do about ten or twelve hours a week, but I'd assume they play outside of the team as well. They say that WoW has a pretty "easy skill cap to reach," but after that, it's a matter of getting the right team members together, because they say teamwork is more important in Arenas than even a game like Counter-Strike ("CS"). And they kind of surprised me with how young they are -- it's a big deal to go running around the world and playing in tournaments when you're probably dealing with school and an early career at the same time. It's not the most well produced Arena interview you'll ever see, but I liked the frank look at the guys and what they're like away from their computers.

Filed under: Odds and ends, Interviews, Arena, Rumors

A chat with Check Six, WoW Arena team originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tom Chilton on Cataclysm additions and the upcoming world event

(Mike Schramm) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST

Our friends over at WorldofWar.de (who were listening live to the podcast this past weekend) recently got an interview done with Lead Designer Tom Chilton, and you can read it over on their site right now. There's not a lot of news in there (though Chilton does gush over the Dungeon Finder, just as players have for the past week or so), but aside from the usual player housing deny and the old "we don't know what the future holds" back and forth, but there is one fun thing he reminds us of in the second half of the interview: Blizzard is adding on to the old Blackwing Lair instance in Cataclysm. It sounds like kind of what they've done with VoA: Blackrock Caverns, which we heard about at BlizzCon, will be a new area (supposedly level 85 5-man, though Chilton says "lots of bosses") inside Blackrock Mountain that's connected to all of the Black Dragonflight bosses in Blackwing Lair.

Finally, Chilton sorta-kinda re-confirms that there will be a new content patch before the expansion -- he says it probably won't be a numbered patch like 3.4 or 3.5, but he says there may be some more class balances in there, new Battle.net features, and possibly even a new raid boss. But mostly it'll just be the patch that brings us all of the world events previous to the Cataclysm shakedown that we'll all go through. Sounds like fun.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.

Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Instances, Lore, Interviews, Cataclysm

Tom Chilton on Cataclysm additions and the upcoming world event originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW Insider Show Episode 120: Dungeon Findorama

(Mike Schramm) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

The WoW Insider Show went on the air last weekend, and despite the fact that we started out down two voices, the discussion was fast and furious, as we all had plenty to say about patch 3.3 and specifically the Dungeon Finder system. Adam Holisky, Turpster, and I started off the show, and then Matthew Rossi muscled his way in (as only someone of his stature can do) to join us in discussion on finding dungeons, Authenticators and the Corehound Pups, and since Rossi made it, we had to talk some shaman and warriors as well.

Bad news, all: we didn't win the podcast award we were up for (congrats to the 4Player Podcast, who won the award and are now our sworn enemies -- we're igniting the rivalry!). But as we say on this show, we'll still be doing the bedtime story for you all anyway, just because you're so great. And yes, above is the check I'm mailing to Turpster for guessing the patch 3.3 release date correctly -- don't let it ever be said that we here at WoW.com aren't men of our word.

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.
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[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Listen here on the page:

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Podcasts, Podcasting, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Humor, WoW Insider Show

WoW Insider Show Episode 120: Dungeon Findorama originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dungeon Finder tricks and tips

(Mike Schramm) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST

When we last talked about this on the podcast, I said we'd basically have to wait and see how it all worked, but now that players have had their hands on the Dungeon Finder out on the live realms for a while, they're learning a few more tricks and tips about how to use it. As Rohan brings up over on the WoW Ladies LJ, it's easy enough to keep a good player once you've found them through the system: as long as none of you drop group once you're done with an instance, you can go back in and run as many as you want. Unfortunately, you can't friend them yet (hopefully that will show up whenever Battle.net functionality does), but the comments on that post point out that if you both sign up for an unpopular instance at the same time, chances are good you'll end up in the same group together (of course, that requires coordination, but maybe you can set up a time out of game).

More tips and tricks for the new system after the break.

Continue reading Dungeon Finder tricks and tips

Filed under: Tips, Tricks, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Instances, Wrath of the Lich King

Dungeon Finder tricks and tips originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW Insider Show live today at 3:30pm Eastern

(Mike Schramm) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

Our podcast is live on the virtual air today at 3:30pm Eastern (8:30pm GMT) over on Ustream, and it's an all-star show for sure. We'll have Michael "Belfaire" Sacco, Matthew W. Rossi, and Adam Holisky all on the show with us, so I don't expect to have to say anything. Maybe I'll just shout out something like "patch 3.3" and see what evolves from there. But Turpster and I will still be on, and if we can corral these guys, we'll be talking about how big a change the Dungeon Finder really is, Corehound Pups in the mail for Authenticator users, and this patch in general. Should be quite a show.

And we'll be answering your emails -- if you have a question for any of us, feel free to send it along to theshow@wow.com. And of course we'll be doing the usual preshow and aftershow, so if you plan to turn up live after the break (or listen via the Ustream app on the iPhone), make sure to stick around for a little bit afterwards and we'll be chatting with you directly. See you this afternoon!

Continue reading WoW Insider Show live today at 3:30pm Eastern

Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Podcasting, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding, WoW Insider Show

WoW Insider Show live today at 3:30pm Eastern originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Quest: "Looking for Waldo"

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:00:00 EST

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

The Pink Pigtail Inn is collecting nominations for a "list of the year," picking the best in a few different categories from the World of Warcraft in 2009. Go leave a nom for their awards, and then come back here -- we'll have our own year-end list of top stories as well.
Kinless Chronicles has not had such a great experience with the Dungeon Finder so far. Low level DPS might be out of luck on finding groups fast.
Tank Like a Girl examines some good tanking gear in the new Frozen Halls 5-mans.
And while Alliance pride is hard to find, Kimberly D knows exactly why she's Horde.

Click here to submit a link to TDQ

Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Odds and ends, Instances, The Daily Quest

The Daily Quest: "Looking for Waldo" originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard announces Rise and Fall of the Lich King screenshot contest

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST

Blizzard's community team is working like crazy before the holidays -- just a few days after the dessert contest kicked off, they've now announced a screenshot contest, this one centering on "The Rise and Fall of the Lich King." Basically, they want you to take a screenshot of your character somehow fighting the Scourge, and in return, they're giving away 11 steins. Ten lucky winners will pick up Rise of the Lich King steins from Taverncraft, and one lucky grand prize winner will win the #1 of 750 out of the limited quantity of signed Legendary Collection Rise of the Lich King steins released. That's actually pretty awesome -- I haven't been enticed to buy a stein yet, but I will definitely submit a screenshot to win one.

And we can even help you win -- check out our recent post on how to screenshot for tips and tricks on how to do it exactly right. Keep your photographer's eye open as you play against the Scourge this month (the contest ends on midnight January 1st, 2010), and one of your captures might pick up some real-life loot.

Filed under: Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Contests, Screenshots, Fan art

Blizzard announces Rise and Fall of the Lich King screenshot contest originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hotfixes incoming for some DPS and tanks, not hunters or priests

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST

Ghostcrawler has dropped information on the forums about a few incoming hotfixes to patch 3.3. The first three changes are posted over on the DPS role forum:

Hunger for Blood will increase damage by 10% instead of 15%. Assassination rogues needed damage, but they got too much, and this will bring them back. Sorry rogues -- the tooltip, we're also told, might not change right away.
Scourge Strike will crit only once, not on the shadow portion of the damage. "This change just proved to be too bursty in PvP and provide too much sustained damage in raids." He also gives lots more explanation of the change on the forums -- this one will be discussed quite a bit.
Rolling Corruptions will no longer use the initial haste value indefinitely. More of a bugfix than a change, says GC -- the haste value should drop out to normal after a few ticks of the spell.

Elsewhere, GC says that there are no changes planned for the new hunter epic ammo, so find a friendly engineer and stick to them like glue. There is a hotfix incoming for the bug that causes tanked mobs to move around randomly -- thank goodness on that. And SW: Pain's immunity from the haste change for shadow priests will probably stay right where it is.

Filed under: Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

Hotfixes incoming for some DPS and tanks, not hunters or priests originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How reputation governs the game

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST

Ravius over at Kill Ten Rats ruminates on the importance of reputation in these very social games that we're playing with each other, and it resonated with me in terms of a few different things going on in World of Warcraft right now. We've talked lots before about ninjas and how that back-and-forth works -- in that case, karma is directly driven by what other people think of you, and of course that's seen more weakly in lots of other places around the game, including guild recruitment, your friends list, and just the general server at large.

Ravius talks mostly about the negative reputations we earn, and certainly that's a powerful motivator for a lot of people. But positive reputation is also a strong force in this game -- I'm interested to see how we deal with earning and keeping positive reputation in the new Dungeon Finder and eventually the Battle.net system. Gone may be the days when you build up a good reputation by saying "remember me if you need a good DPS" at the end of a run. It'll be interesting to see what methods we replace that one with.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds, Instances, Raiding

How reputation governs the game originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phat Loot Phriday: Unspeakable Secret

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

Mindor asked us to please do a caster staff this week, so here's one you can go find in the new Frozen Halls instances this weekend.

Name: Unspeakable Secret (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Epic Staff
Damage/Speed: 281-519 / 2.80 (143.1 DPS)
Attributes:

+81 Stamina, +81 Intellect.

Gallery: Phat Loot Phriday

Continue reading Phat Loot Phriday: Unspeakable Secret

Filed under: Items, How-tos, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Instances, Phat Loot Phriday, Guides

Phat Loot Phriday: Unspeakable Secret originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Armory updates with model viewer, character and calendar feeds

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST

Blizzard has added some nice new features to the World of Warcraft Armory, including a few players have been asking for in the past. The most exciting change is something that doesn't seem to be working quite correctly yet -- they're including a Flash-based model viewer for characters that will let you see what a toon looks like without ever logging into the game. So says their updates page, but as of this writing, the whole system is going up and down, and we couldn't get it to work correctly on any of our PCs. Should be done soon, though.

Other updates include character activity feeds -- there are now RSS buttons all over your profile that will let you track achievements, items, and other specific character information via RSS. And Blizzard has also built in calendar feeds that will let you output guild and player calendars to Outlook, Google Calendar, or other calendar applications. That means your out-of-game calendars will update automatically if your raidleader happens to change up the raiding schedule. And finally, character profiles have been redesigned and streamlined -- they look a little different with all of these new features. The date on all of these changes actually says January 1, 2010, so Blizzard may have implemented them a little early, but sooner or later we'll see these welcome changes all active on the Armory.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Update: The Armory is offline for maintenance now. These changes were seen in action, so they're real, but as we say above, they're officially dated for January 1st. So they may not be in effect just yet.

Filed under: Guilds, Blizzard, Achievements

Armory updates with model viewer, character and calendar feeds originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dungeon Finder reactions from players

(Mike Schramm) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST

The long-awaited Dungeon Finder is finally out on the servers, and people have had a few days with it now, so let's jump in and gauge some early reactions. Overall, it seems to be a big hit -- tanks and healers are jumping into groups right away, and while we've heard of longer waits for DPS, it doesn't seem bad at all. While of course the initial flood of people brought instance servers down (I'd expect to see the same thing happen during peak time this weekend), everything seems to be working well since then: disenchanters are correctly dropping items out, loot is getting distributed correctly, and groups are doing what they were always supposed to do: rake in the badges and rewards for players.

Hots and Dots actually has a long take on the Dungeon Finder, including "15 Things You Should Know," like that tanks and healers are still as important as ever (if you sign up for DPS and another role, you likely won't be doing DPS), and that we're finding out very quickly just how skilled or knowledgeable people really are ("the Party Leader will be forced to confess midway [through] that they actually know nothing about the instance").

Continue reading Dungeon Finder reactions from players

Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Raiding, Leveling

Dungeon Finder reactions from players originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joystiq talks to Frank Pearce about the past and future of Warcraft

(Mike Schramm) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST

Our friend Kevin Kelly over at the Joystiq mothership got a chance to talk to Frank Pearce at Blizzard about the Warcraft anniversary, and he did us proud. Not only did Frank Pearce do some nice reminiscing about Blizzard, where they've come from, and how the massive World of Warcraft undertaking has changed them as a company (they've gone from 500 employees to about 4,000 in just the last five years), but he also touched on some issues we've really been wondering about over here at WoW.com as well.

Like, say, the reason we haven't seen a girl in the ads yet. Pearce says they're open to it, and he wants some names submitted, so we'll offer up Felicia Day as a no-brainer, and if you guys have other ideas, share away below. He also talks about server capacity, and says that at nearly every step, Blizzard has been surprised by their success. He attributes race and faction changes to thinking that realms were big enough on day one to bring everybody together who wanted to come together, but they later realized that wasn't what was happening. He mentions China and NetEase and says they wish the process there was faster. And finally, he talks, surprisingly, about the BlizzCon Vegas that wasn't, and seems to confirm that Blizzard was considering a Vegas show. Interesting. Where else did they consider holding the convention, we wonder?

Filed under: Blizzard, Interviews, Cataclysm

Joystiq talks to Frank Pearce about the past and future of Warcraft originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The World of Warcraft in numbers

(Mike Schramm) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST

Business Management has a really interesting graphic up (that they say came partly from Eurogamer.net, but I didn't see it over there) that breaks down WoW "by the numbers." It features an interesting series of stats about the game, in what I call an Oatmeal-style format, everything from number of players and items (30,000) to number of locations (1400) and the most commonly looted item every day (Frostweave). I think these stats all came from a few different places -- from a talk given at Austin GDC last year, to the toplist over on the official WoW site (of course, that chart is constantly updated, so Onyxia wasn't always the deadliest mob, and Frostweave wasn't always the most looted.

But it is cool to see all of the numbers stacked up in a row in such a stylish way. And 3.6 million pieces of Saronite Ore turned into 3 million Saronite bars? If that's true, why am I paying so much for it at the AH? 192 quests completed per second is pretty wild, too. That's like three entire Oracles reputation grinds (give or take a few dailies), all completed in this second. And this one. And this one.

Filed under: Items, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Quests, Bosses

The World of Warcraft in numbers originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Time to get that Authenticator

(Mike Schramm) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

Well, they started giving away pets for having an authenticator, so I guess it's about time I went ahead and put one on my account. I've had the app on my iPhone for a while, actually, but I never really saw the point in attaching it to my account, especially since it seemed like just more hassle, and who knows what kinds of errors could pop up. And honestly, I haven't worried much about hackers -- I use a secure browser, I don't click on unknown links. But I know, I know, it's safer, and with the cute Corehound Pup out, I might as well go ahead and attach it.

And you might as well, too. Blizzard's Store was flooded with people looking for authenticators yesterday, but things have slowed down a bit, and they've even got a brand new design with the Corehound Pup right on there. The price, as usual, is $6.50 with free shipping. If you've got an iPhone or an iPod touch, you can get the app free from iTunes, and we're told that it's coming to other platforms at some point in the future (guess when: "soon"). Even if you don't want to apply the Authenticator for whatever reason, just think of it as an almost-half-price pet.

Filed under: Items, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Account Security

Time to get that Authenticator originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard orders up a dessert contest

(Mike Schramm) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

Neth has posted an announcement for Blizzard's annual dessert contest, and... wait, dessert contest? I don't remember them doing that one before, but sure enough, they have. I guess it follows after the pumpkin carving contest. Anyway, yes, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to make a confectionary creation based on one of Blizzard's big franchises, and submit a picture of it to them over on the site. Each of ten winners will get seven different Warcraft books, including the popular Rise of the Horde and Arthas novels. You have until December 21st at midnight, so get cooking!

And if you do make a nice Warcraft cake, be sure to send us a copy (if the rules allow), so we can add it to our gallery below. Good luck to everyone who enters the contest, we can't wait to see what kind of sweets you cook up.

Gallery: World of WarCrafts: WoW-themed cakes

Filed under: Cooking, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Contests

Blizzard orders up a dessert contest originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New anniversary interviews in Blizzcast 12 and on the minisite

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST

Blizzard continues to update their minisite -- the latest newness is the posting of a new Blizzcast, in two parts. In part one, Karune of the Starcraft community team interviews Chris Metzen, Rob Pardo, and Samwise Didier about the history of Warcraft as a whole (it's celebrating the 15th anniversary as well this year), and part two has our friend Nethaera talking to J. Allen Brack, Tom Chilton, and Jeff Kaplan about the game itself. As is usual with the official podcast, there's not much new information here (especially if you've already read through some retrospective press), but both interviews are worth a listen (and/or a read through the transcript) if only to hear these guys all in a room together, joking around about old times.

Elsewhere on the site, they've started posting written interviews as well. The first one is with Shane Dabiri, former lead producer on the game, and there are faded-out spots for J. Allen Brack, Tom Chilton, and Jeff Kaplan as well. The other spots aren't revealed yet, but they're supposed to be interviews from the "community," so it'll be interesting to see who those turn out to be. Blizzard, anytime you want to chat with me about the history of World of Warcraft, just drop an email!

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Instances, Interviews, Wrath of the Lich King

New anniversary interviews in Blizzcast 12 and on the minisite originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Guildwatch "makes a potion out the QQ"

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST

The story here is all about sweet, sweet ego: Aliana had a sense of entitlement while raiding -- she was angry that items she would really like to have were going to someone who could only do 4k as opposed to her 9k, thanks to a lousy so-called fair DKP system. We'd like to think Grator is a true Guildwatch fan: we just sit back, listen in, and make a delicious potion "out the QQ."

Lots more QQ potion in this week's Guildwatch, along with the last downings before Icecrown and recruiting notices from around the realms. If you have something to send us (and please do -- the coffers are running a little low, probably because guild business has slowed down pre-patch), throw us an email at guildwatch@wow.com. Hit the link below to read on.

Continue reading Guildwatch "makes a potion out the QQ"

Filed under: Guilds, Odds and ends, Humor, Guildwatch, Wrath of the Lich King

Guildwatch "makes a potion out the QQ" originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ammo controversy in 3.3 already

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

Patch 3.3 is only barely out on the live realms, and already, there's a controversy with the new epic ammo recipes. Lassirra says that hunters are concerned that the requirements to make the ammo are just too high. Blizzard had promised to make getting epic ammo easier, and this still has the requirement of having a high level engineer, with the extra charge of requiring a Goblin engie for the bullets, and a Gnomish engie for the arrows. And even after you find a 450 Engineer in the right spec, you still have to get a couple of Crystallized Shadow or Earth together. That doesn't sound "easier" to me, either.

Let's not forget, however, that this is cutting edge (no pun intended) ammo -- this isn't the kind of vendor junk you just fire while leveling. It's a 30 point DPS gain from the previous high level ammo, and that kind of increase probably does justify a little tougher requirement to make. Of course, it'll probably work out so that other classes get that increase normally through their itemization, but that's just the way it works for hunters. If you want the new ammo, you'll have to find an friendly engie of the right spec with the right skill Honored with the new Ashen Verdict faction, and then keep them supplied with as much Crystallized Earth and Shadow as you can find.

Filed under: Hunter, Engineering, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King

Ammo controversy in 3.3 already originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW.com's gift guide for 2009

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

It's that time of year again -- if you (like me) haven't gotten gifts for everyone on your list, it's time to start scrambling to find something nice to get under the tree this year. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about finding something good for the World of Warcraft fan in your life: we've got you covered there. In the gallery below, we've got a nice bunch of gift ideas for everything Warcraft, from the cheap to the expensive, from the silly to the practical, from in-game presents you can wrap with shiny paper, to out-of-game classics that you can... also wrap with shiny paper. If you need to give a gift to a WoW player this year, you'll find it below for sure.

And if you happen to be a Warcraft player, faced with the annual awkward question of "What do you want me to give you this year?", just feel free to drop this link surreptitiously as a reply, maybe even with a hint or two towards a specific item. We've included links to everything and kept it easy to understand even for someone who hasn't visited Azeroth before. That's our gift to you. Happy holidays, and good gift hunting!

Gallery: WoW.com's Gift Guide 2009

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Guides, Galleries, Fan art

WoW.com's gift guide for 2009 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A lack of Alliance pride

(Mike Schramm) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST

Larisa makes an interesting observation about the Battlecry mosaic that's being assembled over on Blizzard's website. There certainly are a lot of Horde symbols there, and not quite so many Alliance symbols. The best information we have access to actually says that Alliance outnumber the Horde, and ancedotally, we know that's probably true. So why aren't the Alliance representing?

Now, it could just be specific to this outlet -- perhaps Horde players spend more time online, or have more free time in general, and thus have the knowhow and chance to submit their pictures. But this issue has come up before (on our podcast as well): while many Horde players are ready to jump in and shout "For the Horde!" at a moment's notice, not so many Alliance players are as open about their allegiances. As Larisa asks: where's the faction pride?

Continue reading A lack of Alliance pride

Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, PvP

A lack of Alliance pride originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard and how they deal with ninjas

(Mike Schramm) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST

Wojtek sent us this thread in which he posted a long series of emails between him and Blizzard about the ninja of an Onyxia Drake. There's a lot of back and forth, but eventually, the bottom line is that Blizzard was not able to help him, whether that's because he didn't have the information right, they couldn't find what they needed in the chat logs, or they just didn't want to. Later on, the thread is locked, and Wojtek is given the usual feedback address for the GM actions.

So what does all this mean? We've heard in the past that Blizzard will occasionally help with ninjas, and we've even heard unofficially that if you get the main looter in a PuG raid to state the looting conditions ahead of time, Blizzard can go back, look that up, and then reward loot based on who really deserves it. But of course, all of that is unofficial, and there are so many variations and issues in situations like these that there can't really be a hard and fast rule -- sometimes Blizzard can help, sometimes they can't.

Continue reading Blizzard and how they deal with ninjas

Filed under: Items, Blizzard, Raiding

Blizzard and how they deal with ninjas originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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