Posts with tag matthew-rossi

About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on more of our staffers in earlier About the Bloggers profiles.

Allright, let's do this.

What do you do for WoW Insider?

I'm an Editor here at WI, which means I do various things - I write, and I also edit and schedule other people's work. I've been here for a while now - my first column was published back in June of 2007 and I've been here ever since. I originally came on board as the warrior columnist, then I started writing Know Your Lore (which I still do alongside my partner in late night lore discussions, Anne Stickney) - essentially I'm the Grumpy Old Man of the site.

What's your main?

He's a draenei warrior. He started out as a human warrior, back in the days before race and faction change. He's since been a night elf, a draenei, a tauren, a draenei again, a tauren again, a worgen, and a draenei again. In addition to him, I've played several other warriors (another draenei, another tauren, another night elf, a forsaken and an orc) to max level. I basically really love warriors. I've been playing the game since 2004, and my main has seen and done a lot.

As WoW Insider's Editor-in-Chief, it should go without saying that I'm very proud of our team on a daily basis. Every single one of them brings something unique to the table, whether it be style or perspective. They're passionate about their work and love what they do. I couldn't possibly hope for a better team.

Last night, in the midst of perusing the latest PTR datamining, it was discovered that select members of the WoW Insider team will be immortalized in the upcoming patch 5.4.

• Rossi's Rosin-Soaked Shoulderplates bear the name of Matthew Rossi, warrior extraordinaire, our resident Grumpy Gus, and co-host of our podcast.
• Stickley's Grey-Shade Hood is named for Anne Stickney, our lore (and everything else) columnist, also a co-host of our podcast. Anne has been assured that the errant L in her name will be resolved.
• Olivia's Graceful Gaze is, naturally, the helm of Olivia Grace, our PvP columnist, roundtable host, source of infinite pandaren screenshots, and so much more. Olivia also contributes to ZAM with Talk Azeroth and to Gamebreaker.tv as a Legendary co-host.

I want to offer all three of them a hearty (yet nerdy) high-five and extend the same to all other World of Warcraft community members who will be receiving similar tribute.

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If anything's got the power to pull a dyed-in-the-wool WoW player away from Azeroth for an extended period of time, it's a good read. Is there anything more tantalizing than cocooning with a good book you've just discovered? I've recently discovered GoodReads, my daughter's into the lowbie version at EpicReads, and we've made our city library and local Half-Price Books our home away from home. And when we're not reading, we're writing. When the sixth-graders had to turn in their first big compositions for the year, my little bookworm's study mate managed two pages on a funny time her foot got stuck in her shoe; my daughter demonstrated her speculative bent by cranking out 2,000 words on "The End of Humankind." Reading and writing, we just can't quit you.

Like a good meal and a bottle of wine, good books are best when shared, so I thought you all might like to meet two published authors from WoW Insider's own staff of bloggers. Matt Rossi's collections are the kind of anthologies you find yourself still flipping through at 2 a.m. -- "Ooh, what's this one about? Just one more essay before I turn out the light..." Scott Andrews' guide to leading an MMO guild offers the same straight talk and smart strategies as his Officers' Quarters column here at WI.

We peeked beyond the pages of WoW Insider to discover the speculative worlds crafted by Scott and Matt. They told us how they got published, what they're writing now -- and an extra bonus, what's feeding their imaginations in their personal reading piles.

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

What's it like when World of Warcraft becomes your job? This week, 15 Minutes of Fame zooms in for the second half of a behind-the-scenes interview with a handful of WoW Insider staffers. We'll muse over what it's like to write about WoW for work, what it's like to play WoW for work, the rewards and frustrations of writing for a living -- and the No. 1 question we get asked by readers: How can someone get started writing professionally about gaming?

• Zach Yonzon pens The Art of War(craft) every week and creates many of the graphic images you see on our home page, guides and posts.
• Matthew Rossi, one of the most seasoned hands on the WoW Insider crew, is our resident warrior expert who also writes about game lore and general news.
• Michael Sacco, a senior editor, started writing at WoW Insider after working at Blizzard itself.
• Alex Ziebart started out as a weekend blogger and is now a senior editor.
• Fox Van Allen joined WoW Insider early this year and writes the shadow priest portion of our priest column.
• Lisa Poisso (that's me) started out writing the professions column three years ago and now works behind the scenes as an editor and turning out several weekly columns.

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

Who are the people who write all this stuff, and how did they come to start writing about World of Warcraft every day? Being a WoW Insider writer is admittedly a pretty cool gig. Readers ask us what it's like on a regular basis. Giving a single, accurate answer, however, would be a mighty difficult proposition. Some of us are full-timers, while others pen a single column each week; some of us spend most of our time behind the scenes, and some remain constantly before readers' eyes. Despite being scattered all across the world, we come together every day (well, it's more like a waxing and waning, 24-hour cycle) in the WoW Insider chat room (war room? newsroom? Pandora's box of geekery and chaos?) when we're working. Being on the WoW Insider team is a little like being part of an incredibly tight guild, whose members manage to share not only World of Warcraft and many other interests in common but also their workdays, as well.

Although we do have an old, outdated series knocking around somewhere that looks at members of the blogging team, we thought it was about time to give you a fresh look behind the scenes at WoW Insider. Without further ado, let's meet a tiny sampling of the people who work at WoW Insider:

• Zach Yonzon pens The Art of War(craft) every week and creates many of the graphic images you see on our home page, guides and posts.
• Matthew Rossi, one of the most seasoned hands on the WoW.com crew, is our resident warrior expert who also writes about game lore and general news.
• Michael Sacco, a senior editor, started writing at WoW.com after working at Blizzard itself.
• Alex Ziebart started out as a weekend blogger and is now a senior editor.
• Fox Van Allen joined WoW.com early this year and writes the shadow priest portion of our priest column.
• Lisa Poisso (that's me) started out writing the professions column three years ago and now works behind the scenes as an editor and turning out several weekly columns.

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

Listen here on the page:

The WoW Insider Show returns to the airwaves today at 3:30 PM Eastern time, bringing with it familiar faces Michael Sacco and Matthew Rossi (your host and co-host, respectively), with special guests Tim "Heartbourne" Tusing and Jimmy "DJTyrant" Blocksom of Project Lore bringing their unique perspectives to this week's top stories, both here and around the internet.

And, of course, they'll answer your emails and talk live with the folks in the chat channel. You can email the podcast any time of night or day at theshow@wow.com, and you'll be able to listen in to the show on the feed on our Ustream site, or after the jump.

The WoW Insider Show podcast aired once again this Saturday, with me and my guest hosts Matthew Rossi and Colby Moore delving into reader emails and this week's top stories on WoW.com. Thrill as we answer the age-old question of "Is it worth it to skip bosses in random heroics?" Marvel as we say it's pretty okay for Blizzard to help out the police! Gasp as I forget to thank my cohosts at the end of the show and pull a Yakko Warner! Goodnight everybody.

As always, you can email us at theshow@wow.com with any questions or comments -- we might even read yours live on the air.

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

Listen here on the page:

The WoW Insider Show podcast continued along its very merry way this Saturday, and a good time was had by all. Guest co-host Matt Rossi and I discussed our favorite WoW.com stories from the first half of 2009 (with more to come this Saturday), talked a little about Icecrown progression and gating, and weighed in on the quality of Wrath's various patches. We also discussed some very romantic Saber Lash fight strategies, as you might guess by the title of this week's show.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to listen this week -- we've still got a few kinks to work out with the new format, but we're pretty pleased with this week's show and next week's should be even better. As always, if you have a question or comment for the show, email us at theshow@wow.com and you might just hear it on the air.

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

Listen here on the page:

The WoW Insider Show returns to the airwaves today at 3:30 PM Eastern time, bringing you a hot, steaming plate of holiday leftovers. Well, if the latest WoW news and views are what you ate for Christmas dinner, anyway. Michael Sacco will be your jolly host, likely getting his halls decked by co-host Matthew "Burly Ives" Rossi, with a possible appearance by venerable editor Adam Ho-Ho-Holisky. We'll be discussing the part of Winter Veil to which everyone really looks forward: the presents, as well as the team's and our favorite articles of 2009 and the wait for more Icecrown bosses. Maybe we'll even talk about Christmas.

And as usual, of course, we'll answer your emails and talk live with the denizens of our seedy 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 on our Ustream site, or after the jump.

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

Listen here on the page:

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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.

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.
[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Listen here on the page:

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!