Archive for July, 2009
July 26th, 2009
So a while back, I asked you what races and organizations you’d want to see show up in the next expansion. But while races and organizations bring a lot of flavor and purpose to an expansion, there’s nothing like a good charismatic figure to really stir things up. Be it Garrosh or Varian, Bolvar or Brann Bronzebeard, the figures of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion have certainly done a lot to inform the story and drive discussion and debate in lore.
With that in mind, I’ve been thinking of who I’d like to see take a starring role in a future expansion. Turalyon and Alleria are definitely the biggest stars I can think of who have yet to make an appearance. I’d love to see them come back through a portal from whatever world they’re on, with all the drama that would bring. Does Turalyon still hold a grudge against the orcs for the death of Lothar? What will Alleria think of the Blood Elves and of what her sisters have been up to?
Continue reading Breakfast Topic: Who do you want to see in the Expansion?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Expansions, Lore, RP, NPCs
Breakfast Topic: Who do you want to see in the Expansion? originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
July 25th, 2009
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com’s weekly column about all things clanky and rage-related. Matthew Rossi felt like using that old, old, lookit me in my bug shoulders from AQ40 screenshot. Yes, those are the Might legs. We can all look back and laugh now, sure. Back then it wasn’t funny.
Believe it or not, there is a method to this particular madness. Since Blizzard was so kind to go back and release more Q&A for warriors this week, I felt to some degree constrained to talk about the answers they gave (and the questions they answered, for that matter) and in going over the post, one particular passage brought me back to the beginning, so to speak. To the days of running MC, BWL and AQ, gearing up in anticipation of patch 1.11 and Naxxramas. Let’s look at the particular exchange I’m referring to.
- Community Team: It appears that many players who enjoy the Warrior class for its damage aspects continue to feel that, without best in-slot items, their class’s performance is very truncated.
- Q: Is this an issue that we have seen in the Warrior class? If so, do we have any plans to accommodate those players who do not have best in-slot items, while still keeping those with the very best equipment from being too powerful?
- A:This really just gets back to the way rage works, which is that damage leads to rage so you have to pick a point at which you balance warriors. High damage and high rage? Low damage and low rage? The way to fix it is to normalize rage even more so that you always get X rage per second regardless of gear. But once you always get X rage per second you essentially just have rogue energy. So, as with the previous question, we don’t like the way it is working and want to change it but we don’t have a perfect substitute in the can just yet.
This has been an issue for the warrior class since Blackwing Lair. See? I told you there was a reason I dragged out the old picture.
Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Going Back To The Well
Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Classes, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Forums
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Going Back To The Well originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
July 25th, 2009
Our podcast has hit a landmark — can you believe we’ve been doing this thing for almost two years? Yes, it’s been a full 99 times that we’ve sat down and recorded our thoughts on the latest and greatest news from the World of Warcraft community, and tomorrow’s show will be number 100. It will be a lot of fun — we’ll welcome back our good friend John “BigBearButt” Patricelli, and he’ll join Eddie “Brigwyn” Carrington, Turpster, and I to talk about all the most popular posts here on WoW.com, including Sam Raimi’s upcoming movie and what we expect from it, Ghostcrawler’s thoughts on class balance going into BlizzCon, and the Druid and Hunter Q&As that have appeared from Blizzard lately.
And I guess since it’s the 100th show we should do something fun: Turpster and I will be on video during the show, so you’ll get to see our faces as we chat, and we’ll be doing a look back at our favorite moments from the podcast so far. In fact, we also want to hear your favorite moments from the first 100 episodes, and to give you a little incentive, we’re giving away some more loot cards. Two random commenters on this post who tell us their favorite moments from the show’s past will win a loot card code each, courtesy of our friends at WoWTCGLoot.com. You can only enter once, please use a valid email address when you enter (so we can contact you when you win), and you must enter before tomorrow night, Saturday the 25th of July, 2009, at midnight Eastern time. Good luck, and give us your memories!
Our show kicks off tomorrow at July 24, 2009 3:30 PM EDT) over on our Ustream page, or, as always, you can find the embedded stream below. We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon for show number 100!
Continue reading WoW Insider Show’s 100th episode live tomorrow with BigBearButt
Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, WoW Insider Show
WoW Insider Show’s 100th episode live tomorrow with BigBearButt originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
July 24th, 2009
We’ve posted about a few BlizzCon ticket giveaways before, but Kingston, the computer memory maker, is holding the biggest so far: they’re giving away a total of ten tickets to Blizzard’s big event in Anaheim next month. This one’s cake, too: just enter in your info on their page about you and the kind of computer memory you use and buy, and then they’ll pick ten random winners to get hooked up with a ticket to BlizzCon. Unfortunately, you’re on your own for transportation to and from the event (and, we presume, a hotel to stay in if you’re transporting from out of town). But there’s never been a better time to call up your cousin Ed who moved out to Irvine to be a game developer a few years ago and still has that old sleeper couch to stay on. Right?
Good luck to everyone who enters — hopefully if you weren’t able to grab tickets in the chaos that ensued during the original sales, you’ve been able to either buy, trade, or win for one since then. And if you do make it out there, don’t forget: Thursday night we’ll be rocking out at the Anabella. Come by and say hi!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Contests, BlizzCon
Kingston giving away ten BlizzCon tix originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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July 23rd, 2009
Well Sam Raimi is the Warcraft movie’s director, and yet with all of the epic action we expect from it, he can’t do the job alone. We asked a while back about who you would cast in the movie, but what do you think about the other crew members? Somebody’s got to run the cameras and the lights, and make the music and do the CGI, right?
The Lord of the Rings is probably the closest relative to an ideal Warcraft movie, I’d think, and Andrew Lesnie worked closely with Peter Jackson to shoot all of those movies. Bruno Delbonnel is another choice — he not only shot Amelie and the latest Harry Potter, but he’s been Oscar nominated a number of times. Wally Pfeister has worked closely with Legendary Pictures (who are producing the movie) and Christopher Nolan, shooting both of the latest Batman movies and The Prestige as well.
As for music, you’d think that there’d be plenty of Warcraft music already, but Hans Zimmer or Howard Shore might be two ideas for composers. After that, I don’t know — who would do costumes? Effects? It’d be great to have Weta or ILM working on creatures for the movie, but then again, Blizzard’s CG team really should have a part in it. Lots of potential all around: if you were hiring the crew, who would you choose?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Breakfast topics
Breakfast Topic: The rest of the movie’s crew originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
July 23rd, 2009
Spinks has a good post on Duoing in MMOs, where she examines content in MMOs and pairs of players. I’d just like to add another thought to this discussion.
One important point about duoing that’s not often considered is that it has a large impact on system requirements.
A couple or family rarely has two top-of-the-line computers. They might have one edge computer, but the other computer will be a few years older. Then the oldest computer gets an upgrade, and the other person lags behind. Or the second computer won’t be a desktop machine, but a laptop geared more towards work and websurfing.
So it’s important that your game be playable on the *second* household computer. I think that is where WoW has a marked advantage. A lot of newer MMOs are definitely playable on the first system, but won’t run on the second system in the household, and so the couple cannot play together.
Where a single-player game can target the spec of the first computer and still count on a purchase, an MMO or co-op multiplayer game really needs to target the second system in order to be considered a viable option for many players.
July 22nd, 2009
Blizzard announced the Warcraft movie in 2006, after a long and arduous search for a proper production outfit that shared their vision. This search ended with Legendary pictures getting the deal – and while the studio doesn’t have spotless track record (Lady in the Water, I’m looking at you…), I think they’ve hit more home runs than strike outs, particularly with properties that resonate strongly with us geeks and fanboys. Whether or not you agree with their vision, it’s safe to say the guys behind Legendary respect their source material a great deal – from the visually stunning 300, the somber and severe The Dark Knight, and the un-movie-able Watchmen. I even really liked Bryan Singer’s reverent and messianic take on big blue in Superman Returns.
Now, after a drought of news regarding the film, Harry Knowles broke the news about Spider-Man and Drag Me to Hell director Sam Raimi landing the job of helming the Warcraft flick. Variety soon reported that Charles Roven, who produced The Dark Knight, was also joining the mix. Although a lot of things can still change from now until we see Azeroth on the silver screen (directorial musical chairs isn’t uncommon in Hollywood), a lot of us at WoW.com were pretty stoked to hear Raimi being selected for the job. I mean, at least it’s not Uwe Boll.
Continue reading What do you expect from a WoW movie?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends
What do you expect from a WoW movie? originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
July 22nd, 2009
The Mighty Battle continues! Today we’ll take a look at the Alliance and Horde versions of the Hunter and Mage Tier 9 sets. Yesterday’s battle saw both factions score a victory each as the Horde Death Knight armor edged out its Alliance counterpart while the Alliance Druid set neatly trounced its Horde opponent. Each armor set will take on the opposing faction’s equivalent in a three round tussle that covers how well it looks as a class set, how much it represents the faction, and overall design.
Of course, these are all just my opinion so take it with a grain of salt. Players’ tastes vary, so I’ll preface my qualifications by saying that I, uh, am a fan of John Galliano, have the fashion sense of Brüno, and read medieval fantasy fashion magazines. Oh alright, none of those are true, except maybe the first one which still has nothing to do with World of Warcraft armor design. What the heck, this is a humor piece, anyway, so let’s get right into battle!
Gallery: Tier 9 Mighty Battle
Continue reading Mighty Battle: Hunter and Mage Tier 9 sets
Filed under: Hunter, Mage, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Humor
Mighty Battle: Hunter and Mage Tier 9 sets originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
July 21st, 2009
The Battle.net mobile authenticator is now available for a wide variety of mobile platforms in several different countries through the Battle.net mobile store. Originally available only for the iPhone through the App Store, the mobile authenticator can now be used on virtually any phone that can run third-party applications.
There’s only one catch – unlike the original mobile authenticator found in the App Store, these new versions aren’t free. The prices vary depending on your country due to PayPal conversion rates, but they amount to roughly $1 (it’s €0.50 in parts of Europe).
Despite the need to purchase it, we at WoW.com can’t recommend it highly enough. Account security is an important thing, particularly with the rampant account hacking and phishing going on these days. Now that it’s available to use in a wide variety of platforms, there’s little reason not use the Battle.net mobile authenticator. A dollar is a very small price to pay for that additional layer of security.
Editor’s Note: Apparently now the download is showing as “Coming soon” for US/EU carriers. It was showing as up before, but now is not. We blame the Gnomes. Or Ghostcrawler.
Thanks to Medros from All Things Azeroth for the tip!
Filed under: Odds and ends, Account Security
Battle.net authenticator now available for other platforms originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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July 20th, 2009
So as you may have seen if you follow WRUP, I’ve been trying on and off for months to summon up the energy to get through the tournament on my Death Knight. It’s not that I don’t want it, but the Argent Tournament dailies just aren’t my favorite. The quests are lacking life and excitement, and the lore is sort of tepid. When it comes time to solo, I find myself retreating to a leveling alt rather than doing the same old boring dailies over and over again. I’m pretty sure it’s not even the repetition of dailies that’s doing it either. I used to do the Shattered Sun dailies over and over all the time without a care, just because they were so much fun.
But with the announcement of new dailies to be opened to people with enough faction in Patch 3.2, I’ve felt like I need to make that final push. However, it wasn’t until a few days ago that I finally kicked myself into gear, and I’m now at a week and counting of doing my tournament dailies every day without fail. The reason? The background downloader went up.
Continue reading Breakfast Topic: Does the Background Downloader get you fired up?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Breakfast topics, Quests, Achievements
Breakfast Topic: Does the Background Downloader get you fired up? originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.