Posts with tag Mac

It's no secret that Macs, and especially Mac notebooks, run pretty hot while playing WoW. However, in the wake of patch 5.0.4, a lot of Mac users are reporting dangerously high temperatures, and worried players have flooded the Mac Technical Support forum.

A player named Growltiger believes he/she has found what's causing the problem, and has even devised a fix that's seemed to work really well for the people who've tried it. Blizzard's acknowledged this and is working on patching the issue as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I thought that, in addition to including Growltiger's solution here, it might be a good idea to run an article on how to fix and prevent heat problems with Macs. We write for a pretty computer-savvy audience here at WoW Insider, and odds are good you'll find some people in the comment section who really know their stuff. I won't claim to be one of them, but I hope some of the things that have worked for me will also work for you.

Even if you're a novice computer user, you should find a few tips here. However, if you're one of the players looking to implement Growltiger's fix, fair warning: It's not for the faint of heart.

Email notifications for the Mists of Pandaria beta have started arriving in people's inboxes -- and this means that we'll likely see an upswing in beta invite scams, as well. If you have received an email stating that you've been invited to participate in the Mists beta, be aware of the following:

• Don't click any link in the email. Blizzard will never ask you for your account information via email, nor will it usually provide any kind of link to click on.
• Do head to Battle.net. Type the URL into your browser (don't follow a search or email link) and use the secure login on that page to log into your account.

If you have been invited for the first round of Mists beta, you will see your normal World of Warcraft: Cataclysm account listed under your game accounts -- and underneath that, you will see a listing for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Beta. If you do not see a link to the Mists of Pandaria beta under your game accounts, you are not in this round of testing, and the email you were sent was a fake.

The same applies with beta keys as well. If you receive a notification with a beta key, do not click on any links in the email. Go to your Battle.net account as listed above, head to Manage My Games, choose Add or Upgrade a Game, and manually enter the beta key. If the beta key works, you're in; if it doesn't work, you may have been the recipient of a fake key.

Remember, any time there is a beta or a trial period for a new game, there will usually be an upswing in attempts to nab accounts, too. Keep your account safe -- and if you made it in the beta, have fun!

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking out new classes, new playstyles, and new zones.

World of Warcraft has a particularly cool feature on Macs that doesn't exist on its Windows PC counterparts. If you play WoW on a Mac, you can record video in the game itself without the help of any third-party program. This isn't a fancy, complicated video, but it's a great first step toward making your own machinima, instructional videos, or fun films to share with friends.

Recording game footage through your Mac isn't difficult. When you're getting ready to create video, make sure you have your game set up the way you'd like it. Are the graphics right? Are all of your addons in order? Trust me: People care about your UI setup when they see game footage, and it will matter to them. Once you have those things in order, it's time to get started.

People are getting actual StarCraft II beta invites, but that doesn't mean that all beta invites (or any other emails that look like they are from Blizzard) are real. If you got an email saying that you have been invited to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, don't click anything in that email. Instead take the following steps:

• Type battle.net into your browser (no typos) and it will go to the secure battle.net site appropriate to your region.
• Enter your account info.
• Under Manage My Games, choose Add or Upgrade a Game.
• Enter the Beta Key provided in the email where it says Enter Game Key.
• Press Add Game.

If you are able to successfully add the game to your library, then you received a real beta invite. If the email tells you to go someplace else for the beta key or the key provided did not work, then you received a phishing email.

This was a reader suggestion, and a good one: Zvonimir wants to know how many of us WoW players use a Mac to play the game. Blizzard has steadfastly put out Mac and Windows versions of all their games ever since the original Warcraft, but this is not at all the norm in the industry. There are only a few other major MMOs I can think of that even have official Mac versions (EVE, Warhammer, City of Heroes, um...anything else?). Sure, we can always run some sort of virtualization (like Crossover Games, which supports WoW on Linux) or Boot Camp, but that's just less awesome than running something in your regular OS.

Anyway, here's the question for today: what platform do you usually use to play WoW?



Please no flaming in the comments. This is not a "which is better, Mac or Windows" poll. Inappropriate comments will be gladly deleted.

You've read that right, there is a new patch that is dropping today, and right now. Patch 3.2.0a. This patch is a small one, yet important one that is fixing a variety of client issues that have been present since Patch 3.2. This is the first time in quite a while that a patch has not dropped on a Tuesday, and that one has come without any prior notice.

Of particular note with this patch is fixing of the "dump macros" that were being used by numerous rogues. Ghostcrawler hinted earlier in the day that there would be a fix for this soon, but it's surprising to see it solved so quickly.

There are also some graphic fixes in the game that many people should be pleased about. In particular for Mac users.

The full announcement, including patch notes, after the break.

All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one man in his time plays many roles.

Mythic Entertainment released a beta version of Warhammer Online for the Mac this week, along with a free 10-day trial, so I decided to give it a try. I noticed, quite happily, that there was an option to choose a roleplaying server, and as soon as I selected it, I was surprised to see an introduction pop up, about what sorts of names characters were expected to have there, as well as a bit about what roleplaying is, too.

Why doesn't Blizzard have a proper introduction to RP servers special rules in WoW, you ask? Maybe they felt that most players would know what "RP server" was supposed to mean and respect it better, or perhaps they felt explaining RP a bit on their website would be enough. As time went on, however, RP servers have filled up with people who have no interest in roleplaying and Blizzard seems unsure what, if anything, they should do about it. Perhaps Warhammer's RP introduction built into the game is just the solution that WoW needs too.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

There's a great question about the mechanics of spell casting when a proc / buff is or is not active. It's a very fine point that most people don't consider, and it's a mechanic that has been reiterated by Ghostcrawler and company recently. Take a few minutes to read it, you'll be glad you did.

Today's reading music is Frank Sinatra and Natalie Cole singing They Can't Take That Away From Me.

I love the way we dance 'till three.

Mortur asked...

"Now that the Battle.net conversion has been released for a while and bugs have been being dealt with, do you feel that there is much reason anymore for holding off on converting your account to Battle.net? Have the authentication issues after a patch been going away?"

Update: Since this article was published, Curse has launched their "premium" service. This review applies to what is now the premium Curse Client, which requires a paid subscription. The feature set of the free client is much more limited.

Curse Client for Mac has been a long time in the making. With the 3.0 version that came out recently, they finally have a client that appears to run (on Intel/10.5 Macs, anyway), even if it does display a wxWidgets error upon first launch (which can safely be ignored). I've been using it to manage my addons for the past week in order to bring an informed review, so here goes.

The first thing you notice about Curse Client is that it just doesn't look like a Mac app. It's got these weird tabs up top with icons in them, the main icons for initiating events are unfamiliar and un-Mac-like, and it summons odd progress bars that float on top of all your other windows in the lower-right-hand corner (odd progress bar depicted at right).

We've received a lot of reports of Mac users having problems with the login servers this afternoon, and the Tech Support forums certainly lend some weight to those reports. The thread isn't a 26+ page behemoth yet, but it's only getting started. We don't know how widespread the issue is quite yet, but it seems significant enough.

Blizzard representatives are on the case, and while they haven't fixed the exact problem, they have found a workaround: This is only happening with the World of Warcraft specific login servers, and thus it's only happening to World of Warcraft specific logins. If you merge your World of Warcraft account into a Battle.net account, you will be able to log in.

It's no fix, but if you're desperate enough to play and haven't yet merged your account over, now is a pretty good time to do it. Personally, I'm not sure why you wouldn't do it anyway, but that's just my preference talking. If this login issue gets worse before it gets better, we'll be sure to let you know.

Update: This issue appears to be cleared up, but please let us (and Blizzard of course) know if that's not the case!

According to a new Battle.net support page, there will be a new Blizzard Authenticator app for your mobile phone which will generate a code just like the physical authenticator does. The authenticator app will act just like the physical authenticators currently available. The page is sparse on exactly what phones and mobile devices will be supported, but it does mention that it works with the iPod Touch and iPhone.

According to the webpage, you only need a WiFi connection once to activate the authenticator application, and after that you're all set.

This comes right after the transition of the EU World of Warcraft account management to the new Battle.net account management. The US transition is reportedly done, although there has been no official world from Blizzard yet (however all their webpages have already changed over).

The app is not available for download yet via Blizzard or from the Apple store. But we'll let you know the second it goes up!

You can read the full FAQ after the break, or check out the Blizzard Support article.

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

Playing WoW is no fun at all if your system doesn't cut the mustard. If you've just started playing on hardware of questionable power, you may believe you're clicking along just fine -- only to watch your frame rate come to a grinding halt the first time you're faced with a raid or Battleground full of players moving, casting and otherwise wreaking havoc (to both the game environment and your system).

Lots of players start out playing WoW on hand-me-down computer systems. In fact, the spouse who starts playing on an old hunk o' junk, only to become hooked and then upgrade to a hotter rig than that of the established player, has become something of a gaming cliché. The thing to remember here is that a system that will run WoW will not provide the same enjoyment as a system that runs it well.

This forum thread, about the new shadow technology appearing on the Mac in 3.0.2, is confusing. There are four Blue responses in the first 10 posts, and at the end of it, I still don't have a clear idea of whether shadows work on the Mac or not. The issue seems to be this: shadows do work on the Mac, but not the highest quality shadows. Why? Because while Windows uses DirectX to do its 3D processing, OS X still uses OpenGL. And while shadows do work in OpenGL (and eventually can work just as well in OpenGL), Blizzard needs Apple to put some extensions in which aren't there yet, so the highest quality shadows aren't yet possible.

Did your eyes glaze over from all that tech talk? Let's make it simple: if you're on Windows or OS X and you don't see shadows, odds are that your settings are wrong. Open up Video settings in game, and slide the Shadows slider all the way to the right as far as it will go, and then escape out and see if Shadows appear. Note, however, that this will slow your computer down, and as we said earlier today, older computers might have trouble doing this. If you're running an older PC or Mac, you may have to forget about the dynamic shadows completely.

That said, according to the Blues, with the shadow slider flipped all the way up on a PC and a Mac, the PC's shadows will look a little better. That's not a limitation of your computer (or of Blizzard's designers), it's a limitation of the technologies that Blizzard is using to make the game. When OpenGL (the code that allows game makers like Blizzard to draw 3D graphics within OS X) gets updated, then we'll see some higher quality shadows.