Posts with tag launch

Insider Trader is a column about professions by Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, who also writes Gold Capped about how to make money using the auction house. Email Basil your questions.

Cataclysm is upon us, and if you are already maxed out on your professions, you may be considering trying for one of the coveted feats of strength for realm first profession master. You're not alone -- believe me when I say that the competition will likely be fierce; however, if you're prepared, you'll stand as good a chance as anyone. I had the chance to talk about this subject with Kaliope from Crafterstome.com on episode 23 of Call to Auction this week; however, that was a long show, so I figured I'd put down some of the tips in writing.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the game's third expansion (and biggest one yet), is releasing in just six days. To help you prepare, we've got articles to last you all the way through launch day and beyond, starting tomorrow. We'll be covering all aspects of the expansion for all types of players.

Here are some of our helpful Cataclysm articles to get you started; be sure to keep an eye out for more in the days to come!

• New around here? Learn about Cataclysm and nab some tips and tricks for lowbies from WoW Rookie.
• Remember, you can play Cataclysm at midnight PST on Dec. 7 no matter how or where you buy it!
  
• Want to turn your character into a goblin or worgen? You're in luck -- race changes to the new races are available on launch night.
• Learn more about rated battlegrounds in this FAQ.
• Ghostcrawler and the design team have some notes about DPS spec design, and changes and notes for tanks, too.
• Coming back after an absence? Check the new system requirements for 4.0.3 and Cataclysm.
• If you're excited to get into heroic dungeons and raids, check this progression chart for the expansion's intended progression.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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Here's a bit of sad news for all WoW players not lucky enough to live on the west coast: Blizzard CM Bashiok has announced that the official Cataclysm start time for all North American servers will be Dec. 7 at midnight PST. This will include servers on other time zones. So, sorry eastern time people. You may be able to pick up your copies of the game at midnight EST, but you'll have to wait a few hours for the west coast to catch up before you play.

The full announcement is as follows:

Bashiok

Wondering exactly what time you'll be able to begin playing your goblin or worgen or making your way to level 85? On all North American realms, World of Warcraft players who upgrade to Cataclysm will be able to begin experiencing the new content at 12 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) on December 7, whether they purchase the digital download through Battle.net or buy a physical retail boxed version in stores. Players will not be able to access Cataclysm expansion content prior to 12 a.m. PST, regardless of how they upgrade or what time zone they're located in.

source

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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We haven't heard much from the folks at You Play or We Pay lately, but maybe that's a good thing for them -- after all the noise from their initial launch, it seems like things have calmed down over there. They're giving out "Compensation Credits," it looks like they've started running a few ads, and it seems like they've finally settled on a model that works for everyone -- both the founders of the site and the people who sign up for compensation. While we heard the first month of slots filled up pretty fast, the second month seems to be going a little slower -- they've still got about half the slots for March still available as of this writing. But as you can see from the picture, they're promising some real items in exchange for those Compensation Credits. With 150 slots in March and about 100 credits given out last month, you may be waiting over a year to save up the credits to buy a 30-day game card, but the site is working the way they planned: you can sign up for free and eventually get something back for your realm's downtime.

And they're planning on expanding soon -- the site reports that by the 15th of March, English EU players will be able to sign up for compensation on their realms' downtime as well. This site caused a lot of controversy when it first opened up, but we have to give it to them: it looks like they've worked out a way to do what they want to do.

We knew it was going to be a lot, but I think the game outsold even our expectations: Blizzard has announced that the game's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, sold 2.8 million copies worldwide in the first 24 hours, and undoubtedly many more in the weekend after that (we're expecting an announcement later this month around five million in the first 30 days). That makes the game the fastest selling PC game of all time, and by far the fastest-selling expansion of all time (remember that this isn't even a complete game that's flying off the shelves). The previous record, of course, was set by the Burning Crusade, which sold 2.4 million copies during launch.

Pretty huge, but when you consider that the game has 11 million subscribers around the world, those numbers are just about right. Looks like Morhaime is on to something -- as long as they have players ready to buy the game in numbers like this, Blizzard will undoubtedly release expansions as long as they can.

Thanks, Doug!

MTV's Multiplayer blog has an interview with Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime (who is apparently sitting pretty with the elven ladies after last week's big expansion launch). He says that he sees no end to the expansions -- Blizzard has told us before that as long as they have ideas (and players), they'll keep making content for this game. He also says that they're happy with the subscription model in the United States -- although we'd imagine that both of those things might get rethought if Blizzard's subscription numbers were going the other way. For now, though, while things are headed up, Morhaime sounds pretty happy with the way things are.

Finally, they ask about an iPhone app, and Morhaime says Blizzard is working on connecting mobile devices up to the game, but he also specifically says they're not looking at a stand-alone app. So maybe a mobile version of the Armory? I'd love to see an iPhone app, as we've said before, with mail or auction house functionality, but maybe Blizzard doesn't see the majority of their audience on the iPhone anyway. Then again, their Mac guys always need something to do...

What are you possibly doing up this morning? Didn't you stay up late last night and play Wrath like a normal person? Oh well, since you're up and around, let's give out some free stuff. The good folks at Red Sun Comics (hit them up for all of your comics and collectible needs -- here's their Warcraft stuff) have kindly supplied us with not one but two /slashdance loot cards. Yes, that's right, now there's an item other than the Piccolo that will make your friends dance with joy whether they want to or not.

So here's the deal: leave a comment on this post telling us why you're up at this ungodly hour, and we'll pick two lucky winners to nab two different /slashdance loot cards, good for the ingame G.R.E.N.A.D.E. that'll make your friends (or raid, or just random people in the IF bank) dance like maniacs. You can be in anywhere in the world, as long as you play on a US or EU realm (because that's where the codes work).

Enter a comment before Saturday night (November 15 at 6pm Eastern), because after that we'll be closing the comments down and your chance to win will be over. And do go check out Red Sun Comics -- they were nice enough to hook you all up, the least you can do is find some cool stuff on their site.

Today's the day! After years of speculation and months of waiting, Blizzard is finally officially releasing Wrath of the Lich King. More than a few people have grabbed their copies already, but the vast majority of us are heading out to midnight launches all over the country (and indeed, the world) to pick up the game's second expansion.

Blizzard has their own launches planned (there's a rumor going around that the NYC event is canceled, but we've confirmed that's not true -- everything is still on as planned), and so do we here at WoW Insider -- in all the places that we're going out to take pictures and grab our own copies, we're inviting you to come along with us and say hi. We've reprinted all the meetups after the break -- I'll be in Chicago, we'll have people at the Blizzard events in Anaheim and Austin, and in North Carolina, California, Maryland, Minnesota and Florida, and our own Jennie Lees is hosting an event in Scotland. Take a look after the break, and if you happen to be in the area, definitely come out and meet us.

No matter where you are, good luck getting the game, and have a terrific time. We'll be around tonight with coverage of the event as it happens, interviews with devs on the scene, and of course in-depth coverage of our (and your) first steps into Northrend. Today is the day!

Our good friend Relmstein (who I was able to finally meet in person at BlizzCon this year) is back to blogging about World of Warcraft, even though he was on a WAR trip for a while there. But we're glad to have him back -- yesterday, he posted about how Wrath might tackle all the launch issues we saw with the Burning Crusade.

Everyone knows by now that Blizzard has split the entry area into two different areas (with four total Northrend entry points, one for each faction), and of course there's also Death Knights to roll, so hopefully the lag problem is helped (hard to believe it could actually be solved). But Relmstein has other ideas in mind: the dynamic spawn system (mobs will spawn faster the more people there are around killing them) causes some crazy repops last time, and hopefully that's been evened out a bit. He's also worried about the "leveling truce" on PvP servers -- during the last expansion, everyone was more interested in exploring than fighting for the first few levels, but if you missed that ad-hoc "truce," you had new level 70s beating you down as you were trying to explore the world. Hopefully the Lake Wintergrasp PvP zone will keep PvPers busy without griefing all of the people trying to see Northrend for the first time.

And later on, the Karazhan bump is a worry as well -- lots of guilds, early on in BC, were crushed by Karazhan's 10-man limit and the gear checks in there. Will 10-man Naxx also cause a ton of guild breakups, or will the 10/25 man split help guilds play what they want to play? We'll have to see how it all works out -- this is only the second time Blizzard has released this amount of content into the game, so while they're sure to have evened out some problems, you have to think that there will still be a few bumps in the road.

Blizzplanet's got the deets on a Future Shop midnight launch going on in Canada (eh?), so plans of Wrath midnight launch events are starting to sneak out into the world. Blizzard will be doing their usual schtick in Los Angeles, and this time also in New York, San Franscisco, and Austin, where developers go out to stores to sign and say hi while people buy their game. Our good friends BRK and Mania are hosting an event in Orlando, Florida, and I'll be picking up my game at the Gamestop just south of Clark and Diversey in Chicago (and I'll probably invite you all out for a drink or two beforehand at a bar around here, if you're interested). We're also planning some more events around the country here at WoW Insider -- stay tuned for more information about when and where things are going down.

And if you've got information about a special midnight launch event going on around the country (or if, hint hint, you happen to work for a retailer and want to give us an inside scoop on what they've got planned, anonymity assured), please do drop a note on our tip line. The Burning Crusade launch was the biggest expansion launch of all time ever, and Wrath, with its return to Warcraft III lore and the increase in Blizzard's playerbase, is shaping up to be even bigger.

We were lucky enough to try out the WoW Minis game at BlizzCon, and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I've never been much into collecting (I used to play CCGs back when I was a kid, and when, at one point, I spent half my allowance on one pack of cards that didn't have any new ones, I pretty much decided it was over), but the game itself is pretty fun, kind of a mix between an arena match and a turn-based battle. I'd need someone to play with, I think, but if I could convince a friend to sit down and be nerdy with me, I could see getting into it.

If you haven't gotten a chance to see the game in action yet, you're in luck. Upper Deck tells us that they've passed out free starter kits to more than 1,500 hobby stores around the country (they didn't provide a list, but if the previous TCG events went down at a store near you, odds are the minis kits will be there as well), so if you have some free time this weekend, stop in and ask if you can see the game and how it works.

The game itself launches on November 11th, so if you enjoy playing the game at the store this weekend, you'll be able to pick up a starter set and booster packs then.

The Launcher "and its related tools" have gotten another upgrade today, even though the realms haven't come up yet, which tells us that the Background Downloader probably has more work to do, which itself means that we probably won't see 3.0.2 today. Not really a surprise -- it's early by anyone's predictions for sure -- but the Downloader has had a full patch out for a while, so the update is primed and almost ready.

Today's downtime is all about hardware upgrades, apparently, so Blizzard is definitely gearing up for Wrath. We saw lots of hardware upgrades in the months before the Burning Crusade launch (people who were playing back then will remember all of the horrible queues and population issues before servers got expanded), and while Wrath probably won't be as big a jump, Blizzard is still getting ready.

Which just leaves the question of when we'll see patch 3.0.2. Considering the BC content patch came just about a month before release, we're still looking for it in mid-October (likely after all the ruckus of BlizzCon has died down).

In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index.

About Guild Launch

Guild Launch is a popular site that hosts guild's websites. It's popular because it has advanced forums, integrated wiki's for each guild, easy administration, and lots of space for file storage. It's also not to hard to use, and the free version is pretty good.

How to syndicate WoW Insider on your Guild Launch website


1. Log in as an administrator.
2. In the Site Admin area of your sidebar on the left of the webpage, click "Sidebar Widgets". For me, it's the last option.


3. Choose a widget, in this case an "RSS Feed" widget. You can also specify where you want the widget to go.
4. Click the "Add Widget" button.


5. You'll now see that you've added an RSS Feed to your site's layout. Click the little pencil in the RSS Feed box.


6. Fill in the settings as you see above.
7. Click the "Submit" button.


8. You'll see now that the settings reflect the changes you've made, and you're ready to go! You've just added WoW Insider to your Guild Launch site!

Obviously, everyone knows patch 2.4 hit today. You can't turn around without seeing something about it. And, well... if you play WoW, you were probably assaulted with a downloader before you could log in. Basically, 2.4 hit. You know that.

Have you really dug into the content yet, though? I know a couple members of my guild decided they would rather spend the day farming Adamantite and Mana Thistle in the 'old' Burning Crusade content because it was mostly abandoned. While it isn't fresh and exciting, it is certainly making them quite a bit of cash.

Me, personally? I jumped in feet first. As soon as the servers came up I was flying to Quel'Danas and putting together a Magisters' Terrace group. My original intent was to get the new daily quests out of the way first, before everyone got home from school or work or whatever it is they do, but the server wasn't agreeing with me on that. Amusingly, after the mobs on my server were killed, they weren't respawning whatsoever. The server actually stayed up that way for about two hours, devoid of mobs, with hundreds of people standing around on Quel'Danas trying to figure out what was going on.