Posts with tag creative

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

On this fine snowy morning of -12 degrees, I find myself writing an article for WoW Insider. If you had asked me a year or two before, I would have told you that's preposterous: I didn't think I had much in common with other players, and I certainly didn't have the confidence to put anything in front of the masses. I was learning the ropes, leveling, asking questions, not sure what I was supposed to do when the game was "over." I didn't utilize sites such as this; back then, I didn't venture much further than Thottbot.

Yet here I am today, with a few high-level characters, raiding, and I am writing this article. I've dabbled in a few other games since first playing WoW, and each of them has sparked my imagination and opened various creative passage ways. I found myself wanting to start a fan-fiction, which then grew into something even bigger. I always loved writing but never thought I would go anywhere with it. I guess I just needed the right inspiration.

There is a whole feature on WoW Insider (World of WarCrafts) about people who have been inspired by WoW to do great things. How about you? Have you started writing a comic strip, fan-fiction, a novel, created videos, or furthered another hobby? Have you done something you never thought possible because you were inspired by WoW or another game?

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The World of Warcraft Tap Chat, or The Gaming Peripheral Formerly Known As Voice Tap, is now available. Essentially, it's a hotkey for your foot -- or some other appendage other than your fingers. Designed primarily as a push-to-talk button to pair with the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft headset to allow players to devote their hands to the game, this USB device can just as easily be assigned a macro or as a hotkey. This means players can actually assign the Tap Chat to an ability like Hammer of Justice, to add a realistic feeling of crushing your opponents underfoot.

Players willing to spring $29.99 for the edge of one additional button -- notably a non-hand-activated one -- can head over to the Creative or Blizzard online stores, where the World of Warcraft Tap Chat is exclusively available. Although sold out at the Blizzard store as of this writing (barely a week after it was made available), players who manage to get their hands (or foot) on the product also get exclusive World of Warcraft logo lenses that can be used to customize their matching World of Warcraft headset.

Creative is giving away 20 of the new Soundblaster World of Warcraft Headsets from their Facebook page. Just become a fan and comment on the appropriate thread in order to enter the drawing.

These highly anticipated headsets are only available for preorder at this time, but word has it they are fresh off the assembly line and will be available soon. We gave away a few at the end of last year and also got to play around with the prototypes at BlizzCon.

They've given their first three headsets already. So if you are interested, hurry over and leave a comment about what features you are most looking forward to. The contest continues until March 15, 2010.

Note: Commenting here will not enter you in the contest. You must comment at the provided link for your entry to be valid. Also, please go to Soundblaster's facebook page (click on the above picture) for any rules and restrictions.

Creative unveiled an official licensed World of Warcraft gaming headset back in last year's BlizzCon, and we even got a quick look at the product prototypes when they stopped by the annual WoW.com reader meet-up as well as when they invited us to their booth to check it out. Readers also got a chance to win a pair when we ran contests all throughout the last quarter of 2009. if you've been slathering over one of these fancy peripherals but never lucked out in one of our contests, you might be pleased to learn that the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft headsets are finally available for pre-order from Amazon starting today, February 1.

The headsets we previewed back in August were mere prototypes, and the finished product looks far more refined. The headsets follow the same design principle as the Steelseries WoW mouse, with a faux metallic finish and etched runes. The headsets also have interchangeable 'headset lenses' which feature either the Alliance or Horde logo to show your allegiance. Creative also says that they'll be releasing additional lenses in the future, the first set of which will feature the ten classes of the game. As with the official World of Warcraft mouse, the headsets also have a dazzling 16 million programmable color illumination options.

The fully customizable headset comes in wireless or wired versions, with THX TruStudio PC technology for a more immersive gaming experience. The wireless version reportedly carries up to 9 hours of battery charge as well as a standard, detachable USB connector that can also be used to charge it. The headset microphone is detachable to allow the use of the headphone for communication or merely for listening. The World of Warcraft headset can also be configured to match different character profiles, accessible through what appears to be an in-game menu. The Sound Blaster World of Warcraft wireless headset retails for $159.99 while the tethered version is available for $119.99. Creative is also offering a complementary accessory called VoiceTap which allows players to program their push-to-talk key or even a macro to it instead of to their keyboard or mouse, allowing full hands-free communication.

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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

This is usually the part where I try to be funny and write an eye-grabbing intro to The Queue. Today, that goes right out the window. Why? Because I'm busy. Busy doing what, you ask? Picking our new columnists! We have some good ones this time around, folks. Keep an eye out.

Anonymoose asked...

"Why does Keristrasza always yell "Preserve? Why? There's no truth in it! No, no, no!" whenever you engage? How is it relevant, lore-wise, to anything we did for the Red Dragonflight in and around the Nexus? Why is she frozen there in the first place?"

A couple of weeks ago, we announced a huge contest with Creative to give away twenty-five of their new World of Warcraft wireless headsets, one for each person in one big lucky raid. That contest has been over for a little bit, and we've finally picked a winner: congrats to all of the winners in the guild Rusty Blades on Cenarion Circle! They, along with the nine random winners in each of our single headset giveaways, as well as the lucky winners in the five man contest (who've all been contacted and confirmed) will all get their very own units when the headsets are finally released later on this month.

And if you didn't win, don't worry -- Creative will of course be selling the headsets, so you can make sure to put them on your Christmas list, and maybe a loved one will help you out. The latest that we've heard is that they're still due out for release sometime this month, so stay tuned and when we know more about the release, you will too. Since our 25-man contest was actually a bit of a trivia contest as well (guilds had to find five locations in-game and then take pictures at each place), we've put the Rusty Blades' excellent answers after the break. Hopefully you haven't been wondering desperately about the answers for the last month but in case you were, there you go.

We've been giving away these Creative World of Warcraft wireless headsets for a while now, one per week to one lucky winner (and grats to those of you who've already picked them up). But Creative also wanted to work with us to do something really epic, something only WoW.com could put together. And so we're going for the whole enchilada: we're giving away a set of twenty-five (that's right, 25, one per raid member in your group) Creative World of Warcraft wireless headsets. This is going to be the clearest, most amazing sounding group on Vent ever -- not a single person in your raid will have to say "sorry, no mic."

So how do you win? Obviously an epic contest like this requires an epic entry, so here's how we're going to do it: after the break on this post, you'll find a list of five different riddles, each one hinting at a different place in the game.

This is finally it -- your last chance as a single commenter to pick yourself up a Creative World of Warcraft wireless gaming headset. We've been giving one of these away every single week for a few months now, and today we've finally run out of the single headsets, so here's your last chance to leave a comment on this post and win one on your own.

As usual, the contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 13 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Wednesday, November 18th, at midnight eastern, and please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact the winners when we choose them. One winner will be chosen. You may enter only once, and each winner will get a Creative World of Warcraft Wireless Gaming Headset, with a retail value of $150. Please note: winners will not receive the headset until it is released later this year. Click here to read the official contest rules.

Good luck -- oh, and are you wondering why we said "single headset"? Because we will have yet another contest next week, but it'll be more of a "group quest" kind of thing, where you and some friends will have a chance to win a raid full of headsets for yourselves. Stay tuned for more info in one week's time.

Yes, it's time once again to award one of you with the soon-to-be coolest gaming headset around just for performing the not-so-arduous task of... leaving a comment on this post. Commenting on a blog probably isn't your job (though most of you probably do it at your job -- no comment about that), but it could score you some nice swag anyway today, in the form of the beautiful Creative World of Warcraft wireless gaming headset.

As usual, the contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 13 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Wednesday, November 11th, at midnight eastern, and please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact the winners when we choose them. One winner will be chosen. You may enter only once, and each winner will get a Creative World of Warcraft Wireless Gaming Headset, with a retail value of $150. Please note: winners will not receive the headset until it is released later this year. Click here to read the official contest rules.

Good luck as always! And don't forget, whatever you do, to stay tuned, as next week we'll be giving away yet another headset. So even if you don't win this week, you've still got a few chances left.

Hey, you, reading this blog. You like playing World of Warcraft? You like listening to the sounds of the game as you do it? You got ears and a distinct predilection for playing in either the Horde or Alliance faction? Then boy do we have a headset for you: the Creative World of Warcraft Wireless gaming headset is going to be the hottest thing you can put on your head since the trucker hat, and here's your chance to win one by commenting on this very post.

As usual, the contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 13 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Wednesday, October 21st, at midnight eastern, and please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact the winners when we choose them. You may enter only once, and each winner will get a Creative World of Warcraft Wireless Gaming Headset, with a retail value of $150. Please note: winners will not receive the headset until it is released later this year. Click here to read the official contest rules.

Good luck to you all! And don't forget, if you want to win five of these things, there's only one day left in our five-man contest. Just by submitting a shot of your group, you can pick up five headsets, one for every group member. That one ends tomorrow, so get your entry out ASAP!

So we've been doing these Creative contests to give away their shiny new World of Warcraft-branded wireless gaming headsets for a few months now. But if you haven't won one yet, worry not: today, we're giving away five headsets to one lucky instance-running group out there, so you can all talk to each other while you're wiping in Heroic Old Kingdom.

To enter, you've got to send us a .JPG-formatted picture (no bigger than 800px please) of your favorite five-man group -- you and four friends -- to contests@wow.com by 5pm October 29, 2009 (that's one week from today!). Make sure you put "Creative 5-man contest" in the email subject so we can recognize what it's for, and while you can take it wherever and however you want to in-game (or even in real-life!), just make sure there are five people in there. Because one lucky random entry will win five Creative World of Warcraft wireless gaming headsets, one for each member of the group, at a value of $150 each, or $750 total. That's a lot of headsets! You must also be 18 or older, and live in the United States or Canada excluding Quebec -- full official rules can be found right here.

Please note: in addition to emailing us the .jpg picture, you will also need to copy and paste the form below (filled out) into your email -- it was put together by our legal department and simply says that you understand and will adhere to the rules of the contest. You need to include the names and e-mail addresses of all five players in your group so that we can contact you all about prizes if you win.

Good luck to everyone who enters -- we can't wait to see what your five-man groups look like! And stay tuned, because we've got an even more epic contest planned out soon.

Hey there, time once again to give away one of these snazzy Creative World of Warcraft wireless gaming headsets. Not only is this thing kitted out with some of the best audio hardware in the business (including Creative's awesome 3D positional audio, good enough to make you think you really are in the World of Warcraft), but it also comes with either Horde or Alliance "glyphs," which you can place on the earcups near colored LEDs to show off your factional allegiance in style. And you could be the lucky commenter to win one this week!

As usual, the contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 13 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Wednesday, October 21st, at midnight eastern, and please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact the winners when we choose them. You may enter only once, and each winner will get a Creative World of Warcraft Wireless Gaming Headset, with a retail value of $150. Please note: winners will not receive the headset until it is released later this year. Click here to read the official contest rules.

Good luck to everyone who enters (but trust us when we say we're really pulling for you to win). And hey, even if you don't, there'll be yet another chance to pick one of these up next week. See you then!

It's that time again -- time to give away yet another of these beautiful Creative World of Warcraft wireless gaming headsets to one lucky commenter on this post. Throw a comment in the comments section below, and you could be the person we choose to win a brand new Creative wireless gaming headset (complete with official glowing World of Warcraft insignia) even before it's released in November. Good deal? Our record on these things so far is about 3,000 comments, but surely we can beat that -- tell your friends and guildies to run on over and put their own comments on here, and if they win, you can make them pay you an ingame finder's fee in gold.

As usual, the contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 13 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Wednesday, October 21st, at midnight eastern, and please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact the winners when we choose them. You may enter only once, and each winner will get a Creative World of Warcraft Wireless Gaming Headset, with a retail value of $150. Please note: winners will not receive the headset until it is released later this year. Click here to read the official contest rules.

As usual, good luck to everyone who enters. And we're only about halfway through our series of contests thus far -- stay tuned every single week up until the headset's release to try and win one for your own.

Alright, step right up, you lucky sons of motherless ogres. The powers that be over here at WoW.com have decided to bequeath upon a fortunate pair of readers more World of Warcraft TCG loot codes drawn from our bottomless, magical repository of gold and epic items (actually, they were given to us by those folks from WoWTCGLoot.com, which is kind of like the same thing). For today's swag, we're giving away one cute little Sandbox Tiger and my favorite loot item, The Flag of Ownership.

Unfortunately, I can't steal the code for the Flag of Ownership for myself, which is what I would totally do if it wasn't sealed in a super-secret, rune-encrypted, glyph-reinforced, enchanted Titansteel vault guarded by Matthew Rossi's reanimated chest fuzz. Heck, it could be in a box made out of tissue paper and I still wouldn't be able to get at it. Every one of Rossi's chest hairs is as rabid as a Tarrasque hopped on Red Bull. And those are just the ones that have been shaved off! You folks, on the other hand, simply have to leave a comment below for the chance to receive the code from the comfort and relative safety of your own home. I say relative because we've been instructed to send Rossi-hair ninjas to off anybody who leaves more than one comment.

Oh, and don't forget that you only have until Wednesday, 11:59pm EDT to chime in before we lock this thread and swizzle out the winner. If those loot cards don't tickle your fancy, something's wrong with you you can submit an entry for our Guild of the Month contest or vie to snag one of Creative's fancy new wireless headsets. One or the other, you choose. Because let's face it, everybody loves free stuff.

Time once again to give away one of Creative's World of Warcraft wireless gaming headsets. These things are so new they're not even out yet -- they'll be released to stores in November, but we're giving away one right here today, to one lucky commenter on this post before next Thursday at midnight. Tell us what music genre and/or band you'd like to hear playing music through this thing, and we'll choose one lucky winner to pick up a headset for free.

The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 13 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Wednesday, October 14th at midnight eastern, and please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact the winners when we choose them. You may enter only once, and each winner will get a Creative World of Warcraft Wireless Gaming Headset, with a retail value of $150. Click here to read our official contest rules.

Good luck to everyone who enters! And of course, just in case you haven't heard yet, stay tuned, as we've got more of these contests planned every single week until November.