Warcast Podcast

Warcast forums have moved

2010-07-17T11:12:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone. I have decided to move the Warcast forums into a new location for the simple reason that I have only one vBulletin license, and I didn't want to either pay for a new license or have to manage two different types of forums. All users that have at least one post still have active accounts. All the forums are there, as well as PMs. Users that had no posts had to be pruned because there were so many spam accounts that I just did a complete wipe of inactive accounts. It was affecting our hosting since all the bounced emails were getting sent to me several times a day, and the best way to combat it was to just wipe all accounts that had no posts.

We hope that you continue to use the forums as before, and join with the Geekistry community there.

Click here to go to the new forums

World of Warcast: Episode 104: Happy 5th Anniversary

2010-07-13T12:15:00.001-05:00

Episode 104, @Starmike does PvP and discovers the power of resilience. We both share our Top 5 highlights of the game in the last five years and our top five predictions for the next five years.

We would love to get your submissions. I'm particularly looking forward to hearing other people's predictions. I'd like to find out what direction people think the game will go. The top buzz right now is free to play but I have serious reservations of Blizzard giving up their subscription market as strong as it is right now.

Join this episode's conversation! BUZZ POST HERE-->>Google Buzz Post: Episode 104

Starman's views on RealID

2010-07-07T09:48:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Blizzard announced that their RealID system was coming to their forums. That means your real name will be used when posting. I cannot think of anything that can make me more angry than this. Why so much anger? Several reasons. First, this is a game. By definition it's an MMORPG, emphasis here on the "RPG". It's a place where I can play the game my way, and separate myself from the real world. I don't want the real world and my online world to mix unless it's on my terms. Blizzard is now taking that choice away from me and millions of other people.

This isn't Farmville, this isn't a Facebook app, but someone seems to want to turn it into one. When Blizzard made this announcement, my view on the game shifted. I still love and respect the game, but now I have this nagging thought in the back of my head that someone wants it to be more of a social network than an MMORPG. I've been asking Blizzard for more tools to communicate with your friends in and out of the game like Everquest does, but this is too much.

Blizzard is also telling people that this is to clean up the forum trolls. Whoever thought of that decision never read Usenet. We'd argue for months at a time on particular topics, all using our real name. Granted, Usenet was unmoderated, but we weren't afraid of calling people out. I just don't see this change as being a help. In fact, it will move people towards other forums such as our own, the instance, mmo-champion, tankspot, and elitist jerks.

I also don't believe that this is just for a forum cleanup. If anything, you're going to lose a large part of the intelligent community simply because they don't feel comfortable posting with their real name. I think that there's something like direct Facebook integration coming. I don't want Facebook invading a game. It's a terrible idea because the game stood on its own. The most I ever wanted was the ability to talk to guildies out of the game, not also see their drunk pictures because they happened to be in my guild.

One argument some people have is that the forums are optional. I disagree with that. I'm paying for the ability to post to those forums. It's where I go to ask about class issues, quest problems, and other things. It's the first place I go to. I don't troll the forums, but now I'm going to be punished for those that did. Also, Blizzard requires that you post on the forums when you have a customer service issue and can't call in which means your real name will be exposed. That, to me, is not "optional".

The people most at risk are the ones that have the most to lose. People looking for a job are probably the ones that have to worry the most. A potential employer can Google your name and "oh, look, they posted on the WoW forums. Well, we don't want WoW players working here". Teachers, women, children (if not blocked), and others that may be ridiculed are all at risk, simply because they posted on a game forum.

Other problems I see:

Gankers / Campers on PvP servers
Gold sellers
Annoying people on the forums (the bigots and racists are the worst IMO)
Stalkers
Professionals that don't want their name shown in a Google search
Harassment

There are two solutions:

1) Get rid of RealID on the forums altogether.
2) Use RealID on the main forums, but allow character names on the customer service forum.

I would implore Blizzard to rethink this change. Not only does it make over 22,000 people upset, but it puts the game in a different light. Now people will think of it as the world's biggest Facebook app, and that stings.

Happy 5th Anniversary Warcast

2010-07-03T16:06:00.004-05:00

July 2nd marked the fifth anniversary of The World of Warcast Podcast. Massive props to Starman for having the longest running World of Warcraft Podcast. It's been pretty amazing to collaborate and be a part of this production now.

Starman and I would love to thank all the listeners and supporters! A special thanks to those who continue to inspire us and contribute to the discussion. We are definitely loving the feedback and conversation.

For the 5th year anniversary show, we'd LOVE to hear your feedback either buzz, e-mail, voicemail, twitter @worldofwarcast, facebook, or mp3 (would love to hear your voices for a change)!

He and I are going to pick our favorite experiences or things in WoW for the last five years, one for each year and our top five predictions for the next five years. It'd be awesome to hear everyone else's favs and predictions too!

Example:
Alachia's Top 5 since 2006:
2006- 40 man raiding for the first time
2007- Playing a Priest in Battlegrounds before they nerfed Prayer of Mending! OPness FTW!
2008- Achieving our first [Amani War Bear] for our 10 man raid group!
2009- One Word! Wrathgate!
2010- The fact that resto shamans are still unchanged (we win as the most perfect class of this expansion!)

Alachia's Top 5 Predictions:
1. Looking for Raids will be available at some point in Cata
2. The Death of 25mans :(
3. @eljeppy's army of Alts finally gets their own server named Biscuits
4. You will be able to foursquare your location in Azeroth and become the Mayor of Ironforge!
5. Tarutaru's will replace gnomes! okay, I wish. But that's more likely than me having a Horde character! :D

Hope to hear from you guys soon and THANKS AGAIN for all the support!!

World of Warcast: Episode 103: Introducing Megadan

2010-06-29T06:43:00.003-05:00

We got this great e-mail a few months ago from @megadan66 who explained how WoW changed his life by inspiring a spark of creativity that he may have not otherwise pursued. Now he is writing his own Audio Theater production called The Megadan Chronicles as part of an ongoing series featured on the Bind on Equip podcast. He's also submitted a 500 word short story to an online competition. Did I mention he never used to write before playing WoW?!

Episode 103 introduces you to this self-taught writer/producer and most importantly of all, WoW player, Megadan. Also, we discover you can say the word "penus" on Warcast. :)

Here are the related links regarding podio resources as recommended by Megadan who also does a story suggest segment called Mega Suggest on The Addicted podcast:

Morevi by Tee Morris: The first to do a full cast production. Tee set the standard. He's much respected and loved in the community. He has literally inspired or helped hundreds of authors.

Philippa Ballantine: This is a link to all of her podcasting . She's one of my favorites I love her work.

The Metamor City Podcast: I wish I could Visit this place

Cybrosis- A Podcast Novel by P.C. Haring: A really good cyberpunk novel

Join this episode's conversation! BUZZ POST HERE-->>Google Buzz Post: Episode 103

World of Warcast: Episode 102: WoW + Mobile Technology

2010-05-20T11:40:00.003-05:00

Following up an intriguing conversation @azyxa and I had in Bindpoint back in April, we invited him to come on Warcast Episode 102 to share some of the crazy ideas we came up with for mobile technology + World of Warcraft.

Also the week of the recording, as appropriate as it was, this news came out: http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/introducing-the-remote-auction-house/. It'd dated news now but we're still interested in hearing people's reviews on the application. Do you feel like it's worth it? Is Blizzard heading in the right direction with mobile technology or is this just another profit scheme?

Join this episode's conversation! BUZZ POST HERE-->>Google Buzz Post: Episode 102

Episode 101 with @iKrissi

2010-04-22T21:50:00.008-05:00

Joining us for Episode 101 is @iKrissi aka Starman's RAF partner in crime.
We talk to her about the new WoW breed of power leveled end gamers.
We ask her what knowledge she had about the game before she joined.
Why she picked the class she did and what it was like leveling from 1-60 in flash.
What does she think of end game and her impressions of WoW as it is now.

Also news on the Celestial Steed and what it means for WoW as a subscription based game. Could this be an experiment to process revenue for a future play-for-free model?

We also touch on the annoying gearscore factor and what it means to us and how the de-evaluation of gear equals more opportunities for varying play styles.

Google Buzz Post: Episode 101

Episode 100 with Lindyen

2010-04-10T22:41:00.011-05:00

Kicking off with the new direction of the show with episode 100, we're joined with the original co-host of Warcast, Lindyen! It was an amazing and wonderfully delightful opportunity to visit with him.

Great discussions!
*Playing the Same Class in WoW for 5 years (mage)
*Social roles in groups while playing pure DPS class. Expectations, stigmas, streotypes vs Healer Alt.
*How the changes in WoW has allowed for more autonomy, fun, and enjoyment in the game.

Google Buzz Post: Episode 100

Fixing the Website

2010-04-05T07:49:00.003-05:00

Re-working the website- it should have all of it's normal functionality by the end of this week. :D

It wasn't working with Firefox so hopefully it'll work on all browsers after this.

Thanks!

Episode 99: A new Look at WoW

2010-03-31T11:20:00.004-05:00

Starman and I scratch the show notes and instead delve into how our views on WoW have evolved. We are now looking at the game with new possibilities to explore in the podcast. It's something I think we're both pretty excited about.

For years, you've heard Starman and I gush out our love, hate, history with World of Warcraft (Warcast/WoWcast). But he and I have played WoW in a particular way for years and years and years and have only seen the game as an MMORPG. And as you can tell in the last couple of episodes, he and I have been struggling to figure out what has happened within our game that conflicted with our natural mode of playing.

In many ways, it does feel as if WoW has evolved and transformed greatly in the past year. We hope to evaluate and discover the technical mechanisms as well as the social outcome of those changes that we feel have driven WoW to be the most valuable social networking tool at this time (for gamers).

Please feel free to give us your feedback or discuss in the comments of this post or in the Google Buzz feed I'll link below. The point is there are so many perspectives out there because we all socialize differently. We all utilize WoW to many different degrees. We hope we get a chance to visit with others who are also exploring these concepts.

Google Buzz Post: Episode 99

Episode 98 Show Notes

2010-02-16T02:13:00.004-06:00

Announcements/News
New Armory- 3D, RSS

Paragon World First Kill of Lich King (Ensidia disqualified)
Vodka first US Kill
http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/paragon-world-first-lich-king-pvp-healing-blue-posts/

The big mystery will be who becomes the new lich king.

1 of 5 Weekly Raids opened in ICC (opportunity for more badges)
- Sack of Frosty Loot

Auction House iphone App

Blizzard announces new Facebook armory app.

Blizzard's commitment to security
http://us.battle.net/security/

BlizzChat Developer Chat on Twitter (highlights)
Q. Will you be emphasizing more on Horde vs. Alliance hatred in the future?
A. It's a major focus for Cataclysm. Neither Garrosh nor Varian is a major fan of cross-faction cooperation.

Q. Why not give all the races the ability to be every class?
A. We're getting pretty close to that in Cataclysm. Some combos just don't make sense though. Goblin paladins strike me as bizzare.

Q. For those of us who collect tabards and armor sets, do you see a way for us to store and not use our very limited inventory?
A. Yes. We'd like to store them the same way you do titles. In general, we don't want to punish the packrats out there who just like to collect stuff. We will have to wait and see what we can do about it though.

Q. You added Armor->Strength talents to discourage Plate from wanting DPS leather. Are there any plans to stop non-clothies from wanting Cloth?
A. Yes, we do have some plans.

Q. Will Cataclysm bring the return of special-proc items such as The Unstoppable Force?
A. One of the fun aspects of looking at those old zones are the chances to try and hit up all the nostalgia for things like that. So, yes.

This week INSIDE WoW
Raid Standards Woah! http://www.worldoflogs.com
11,000dps avg for 10mans wearing 25man gear. Our top dpsers are only hitting 6k on avg for single target dps.

Leatherworking as of 3.2.2
Drums of Forgotten Kings-
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49633
Drums of the Wild-
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49634

RAF with Jeppy

RAF - cost= new account as of August 2009

RAF- perks

Zhevra mount,
triple xp,
summon-link,
two for one level,
A free month of game time for every recruit who upgrades to a retail account
10% bonus on all reputation gained from killing mobs. (Reputation gains from quest rewards are unaffected.)
The 10% bonus from killing monsters on the Heirloom Shoulder items does stack with the triple XP

RAF- how does it work?
90 days, lasts to level 60
Each character on the account that was recruited can grant levels. If you level four characters to 60 via RaF, you will have well over 100 levels to grant.

What's the best way to level after you get to 60? Where should you go?
- Can't skip the Kurenai in Zang because that unlocks most of Nagrand

Mod of the Cast
Perfect Screenshot
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/perfectscreenshot.aspx

Next PFQ
How has Blizzard made WoW better?:
QuestlogPodcast: faster leveling is a major one for me. Don't miss 15days played to 60. Also the dungeon finder is a good send.
mokisandk: 10 man instances. Dungeon Finder. Interactive Story Line (Lich King).
911guiltyjerk: Hardmodes (Ulduar style, not ToC or ICC style) Ulduar style gives instance more soul and more levels of difficulty
martinbaloch: Achievements! Certainly revealed all the achievement whores that play the game, myself included! Need moar mounts...
eljeppy: WoW has changed for the better by opening up many paths to participation. You get to choose your end game style.
astigma82: Argent Tournament..love me some jousting :) Plus nice heirlooms to send alts.
DouglasS28: It hasn't, Blizzard just made it more addictive I think.
nymuera: heirloom items, and the badge system updates.
Ejjii: 2 things: Dungeon Finder & Easier Emblem collecting has allowed me to remain competitive in my erratic play times.
phoenix1914: Achievements have really made the game better, especially for casual players. Coming next patch, epic loot from cooking badges. LOL
gorgatz: PFQ: no blizzard has dumb down WoW too much & way too much homogenization that there is nothing specific to any class
Slashdoom: the greatest improvements have been in game accessibility. Access to gear, groups, mounts, allow you to play the game efficiently.
chewyfruitloop: they made it better by battering the evil out of the warlocks, now we're just slightly naughty mages
Mikeman80: WoW has changed for the better letting more people achive there goals and have fun in the game

Sean Edwards: "They banned Ensidia!! :D
Seriously though the changes they've been making to the gameplay experience have been positive. The new questing system is much better (even though dumbed down from vanilla).
The dungeon queueing system is amazing. It really opens up the game to new players and people looking to play alts. Now what they need to do is add raid content to the finder, or even a scaling system where your level and gear would scale to the dungeon's level"

Sheldon Williams:
"I think Blizzard makes WoW better by the fact that they seem to figure out the right balance between listening to their player community and doing their own research when it comes to making changes to the game.
The best comparison I can make is if you ever experienced Star Wars Galaxies and how that team managed to mess up an excellent IP like Star Wars. The developers on that project seemed to only listen to the loudest voices in the forums and consistently tried to rebalance classes and adjust the game just to appeal to the vocal minority.
Blizzard on the other hand seems to know when its time to listen and when its time to put their foot down and make the best decision for the game and not necessarily the best decision in the mind of the players. "

Photowalk
http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth
Wetlands
Saturday 11am central Boulderfist PvP Alliance US server
/join oldazeroth

Important links:
Warcast Googlewave (discussion also displayed on the website): Thanks to Matt, Brandon, Jerry, and PkDan
wowcastpodcast@gmail.com

http://www.facebook.com/warcast
http://www.worldofwarcast.com

Twitter: @alachia @starmike @worldofwarcast
e-mail: alachia@worldofwarcast.com, starman@worldofwarcast.com, worldofwarcast@gmail.com

Leave a review on iTunes!

Episode 97 Show Notes

2010-01-18T18:58:00.003-06:00

Episode 97:

Announcements/News:
*Man accused of World of Warcraft scam
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/man-charged-with-world-of-warcraft-scam/1064822
Christopher H. Bouffard, 23, was charged with scheming to defraud and two counts of grand theft. He was being held at the Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $20,000 bail Tuesday. According to Clearwater police, Bouffard offered to sell online World of Warcraft characters but cut off all contact once he received payment. Bouffard accepted at least $760 from two people in 2008, and there are at least two more victims, according to arrest reports.

*World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Begins alpha testing! January 12, 2010
http://it-chuiko.com/computers/2071-world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-begins-alpha-testing.html

*WoW Magazine- Starman's Review

This week INSIDE WoW:
Improving Oculus loot:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/oculus-loot-improvements/
Bag of rare gems, two additional Emblems of Triumph, and a chance of being rewarded the Reins of the Blue Drake

Doesn't solve the problem!
The Problem is PUGS don't know how to do the instance.
Drakos the Interrogator
---stand and nuke (if healer can't keep people up during this boss, leave the heroic immediately)

Varos Cloudstrider
---three dps pick the amber drake, the tank picks the ruby drake, and the healer picks the emerald drake (put the drake on a keybind)
Fly straight up to the platform above you try to agro as little of the drakes flying about as possible. Stay on your mount until everyone has landed on the platform
nuke the platform.
Fly straight across to the main oculus ring and work your away around it. Nuke nuke nuke. This brings you around to the next platform. Fly across to it and nuke it.
Fly back to the main ring and circle around it till you get the platform Varos Cloudstrider is on. Staying on the main ring ensures little agro from the surrounding drakes.
Just nuke him. Jump out of the beams when they come but the dmg doesn't seem that significant anymore.

Mage-Lord Urom
Fly up. Follow the mage. Nuke. Fly. Follow until he goes to the main ring. Nuke him. Don't bother to kite if at least one of the dps can do more than 3k dps

Ley-Guardian Eregos
Ruby- engage Eregos- Use Searing Wrath to aoe the whelps when they come out. Evaive Aura, Evasive Maneuvers, Martyr can be spammed on cooldown to absorb damage.

Amber Drake- Channel Temporal Rift stack to about 8, then hit shocklance. Use Time Stop when whelps emerge from boss.

Emerald Drake- apply leeching poison to Eregos. Keep stacking. Make sure you can see the full party. Use Dream Funnel on any low players, channeled. Don't bother with touch of Nightmare.

PLANAR SHIFT AT 80% and 20%. Move counter clockwise away from boss. Stay away from the balls until they blow. Then rinse and repeat.

---------------------------------------
Battered Hilt Quest: If you have even the slightest chance of going to ICC, sell this or give it to a friend!

---------------------------------------
Google Wave comment: By Jerry Brower
I want to make a comment on discussion from Episode 96, where you were talking about the simplification of WoW in the next expansion. I agree with you that this is a dangerous direction. That is what happened to StarWars Galaxies. It WAS a great game with complexity in characters and game mechanics where you could mix and match different "classes" by using a point system. Then the horrible "upgrade" where they said it was too complicated and simplified it to just a few generic architypes with very little to differentiate your character from all the others. I think that is what people want. A way to be different and better in some way. The other thing that killed SWG for me, which is also a good warning/example, is that they gave all the young whiners what they wanted and allowed anyone to be a Jedi. In so doing, made Jedi nothing special and ruined the timeline. (imagine a Tatooine where there are 40 Jedi running around everywhere with their lightsabers out. I think they were more prolific that during the hight of the old republic)

---------------------------------------
PFQ: Warcast PFQ: Do you consider yourself Casual Fun, Casual Hardcore, Hardcore, Elite?
esamenoi Casual Hardcore mainly. However does wanting to do the achievements make me fun?
pkdan14850 Casual Hardcore all the way. Having fun with my friends is the primary goal, but doing it with style and skill is best.
Fireisle casual fun
pinksyllibus Somewhere in between Casual Fun / Casual Hardcore. It depends on my schedule, I suppose.
Zeus9387 I consider myself casual fun. I pug raids and play at my leisure whenever I have time.
Stompalina Casual Hardcore/Hardcore... anything but Elite.
strumpet101 Casual Fun/Casual Hardcore - meh who am I kidding? Casual Hardcore!
celticlucas casual fun. I'd rather play the game for fun than turn it into a second job.
chewyfruitloop used to be hardcore...then got kids....
AzyxA Casual Hardcore I suppose.
jaminbee_007 casual hardcore, if I could get into a raid team I would totally go hardcore
Dylan Gaviria casual hardcore
trevordiamond casual hardcore? I dabble in raiding but don't play more than 15 hours a week
erylate Casual Fun/Casual Hardcore
911guiltyjerk Hardcore
zackintoys Casual fun, with heavy Hardcore leanings. Working thru ICC now, not to be leet but to see the end of Arthas' story firsthand.
aoirselvar casual fun, but if I didn't have a family I would be more hardcore, kids have to come first.
GettingWorse I'm a casual elitist. I only stroke my epeen occasionally :)
T3hG4meGuRu I'm a Casual Hardcore Wow plyr
mac_zealot Way back in the day, I was Hardcore, very briefly, but way too much time. Since then, I've gone thru Casual HC, to Casual Fun.
eljeppy I'm all about the casual fun side of WoW this is probably why I'm the only living pre BC player not to have a current 80 main!
hossimo Casual fun atm, only because I love my son so much. -- wonder if that might be taken out of context :)
CanadienRyan Casual Hardcore.
SunsetMuse Casual fun that wishes she was more hardcore. =X
Ayep casual fun
gorgatz casual hardcore for the most part
kathunter These days, Casual Fun. This is due to my Alliance guild falling apart.
Meegeekai definitely casual hardcore since the lfg system went live
DouglasS28 Depends on my mood lol. I can be all three.
Tolmarsk Casual Fun... always have been... probably always will be!
RCain40 I think these need some def Elite=If I'm not asleep eating or working Im on Hardcore=WHY CANT I RAID ON FRI! Abrahm Area52 Rebirth

Next PFQ: How has Blizzard made WoW better?
A look back at how Blizzard changed the game for the better
example: Bank slots costing less, Mounts at 20, The new LFG tool

Photowalk: http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/
Badlands
Saturday 11am central Boulderfist PVP Alliance US servers

Links:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/warcast/
http://www.facebook.com/worldofwarcast

google wave.
wowcastpodcast@gmail.com

Twitter:
@alachia
@starmike
@worldofwarcast

email: starmike@worldofwarcast, alachia@worldofwarcast, worldofwarcast@gmail.com

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/worldofwarcast

Episode 96 Show Notes

2010-01-05T11:36:00.002-06:00

Episode 96:

Announcements/News:
Taiwanese Man "Finishes" World of Warcraft: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177172
Editor in Chief job posting for The World of Warcraft Magazine? http://www.asylum.com/2009/12/03/geek-job-alert-editor-in-chief-of-world-of-warcraft-magazine/
Horde vs Alliance, the official competition: http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/147490/news/134244.20091203.World-of-Warcraft-Battlecry-Mosaic-unveiled/

This week INSIDE WoW:
HOMOGENIZATION. REAL or MYTH?
Two emails regarding responses to episode 95:

Hi Alachia,

First, thanks to you and starman for doing the podcast, I look for it every week.

I was surprised by your reaction to the cataclysm stat changes, where you thought that the removal of the front-facing stats would mean greater homogenization of classes. I think these stat changes are actually going to do the opposite, considering what Ghostcrawler has said about the reasoning behind the change. These stats, of course, are not really being removed from the game, they are being removed from the gear. Gear stats will be simplified, and character stats will be simplified and pared down.

It seems to me, though, that this will make class balance a lot easier for blizz to handle, while freeing them to make more interesting talents and spells. As it is now, they always have to consider new abilities against class balance, and this is a major limiting factor. I'm happy to hear that they won't have their hands so tied anymore.

Sure there are those spreadsheet jockeys that love the stat game (and I love those people, believe me), but I don't think anyone would say that's the best part of the game. I don't think its such a great loss to lose the need for theorycrafting if the result is more diversity in class abilities and therefore new opportunities for gameplay strategy.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what really happens, but it seems to me that this is what Blizz is trying to accomplish with the stat changes.

Thanks again,

Sannleikur, level 80 rogue, Hyjal US
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Alachia,
After listening to your prediction about how theorycrafting is going away in Cataclysm and how all the raiders are going to leave, I felt that I had to chime in. Because the pattern I've been seeing so far in WoW has been the opposite of your observation.
Before I begin, I don't want to toot my own horn but I feel that I do need to give some credibility to what I'm about to say - I am a member of the guild Eternal Reign (which, if you check wowprogress.com, you will see that ToGC has been very good for us as we are currently ranked #6 in the world and #3 in the US). This will also help you to understand where I'm coming from and the difference in perspective that comes with my playstyle.
Stats in Cataclysm
First of all, most stats are not going to go away in Cataclysm. Blizzard has announced that they want to consolidate the stats that make you hit harder into base stats. This means attack power and spell power are going to be converted to strength, agility, and intellect. However, stats like crit and haste are not going away. The only thing that's really going away is the extremely mathematically confusing stat of armor penetration. If you think back to vanilla WoW, neither haste nor armor penetration even existed, and yet we still had a very robust theorycrafting community.
To summarize my above point, the stats that will be in Cataclysm thus announced are listed below:
Stats that make you hit harder:
Strength
Agility
Intellect
Attack Power will possibly remain on rings, necklaces, and trinkets.
Stats that make you crit more often:
Agility (just like now)
Intellect (just like now)
Crit rating
Stats that make you faster:
Haste (increases cast speed for spells)
Haste (increases energy/rage generation for melee)
Stats that increase mana regen:
Spirit
As you can see, the majority of the stats that we have now are still going to remain. They just don't want multiple stats that do the same thing and serve no real purpose other than to confuse players (like spirit vs. mp5).
Rotations in WoTLK -> Cataclysm
The pattern I've noticed in terms of what buttons players need to press in order to maximize DPS has been a smooth ramp from mindlessness to the need to pay more attention. In the beginning mages spammed fireball. Now in WoTLK they have to pay attention to their Hot Streak procs. In Burning Crusade, beastmaster hunters spammed 1 macro. Today, they have to pay attention to a lot of bleed, poison, and proc uptimes in order to decide what button to press. There are many classes today which don't even have a rotation. For Arms warriors, the player must make an active decision nearly every GCD as to what attack to use.
So, your idea that WoW is going to become oversimplistic and everyone is just going to press 1 button is, in my opinion, the polar opposite of what is actually going to happen. Rotations are going to require more and more attention, not the other way around.
The Difficulty of WoW
My thoughts on this subject are summarized very well by this post from Blessing of Kings:
http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-difficulty-and-guilds.html
Hard modes in my opinion have been quite healthy for WoW. Anybody who has ever done Anub'arak on 25man (heroic) is not going to complain about WoW being too easy, and those who have conquered Firefighter (25man), and Alone in the Darkness (25man) know that Blizzard really didn't pull any punches on those encounters. For those really seeking a challenge - it's definitely there to be had.
10man raiding however, is in a different situation. The ability to obtain 25man gear and then doing 10man is an extremely powerful advantage that makes the encounters a lot easier. Add that to the fact that 10man encounters are not tuned with the assumption that you will have a shaman for heroism, and the dps requirement is then even easier.
In short, the challenges that exist in 25-man hard modes are indeed very challenging, but the 10-man versions are not. And the only people who really complain about WoW being too easy are the ones who do not try the 25-man hard modes.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading my wall of text. I hope I did not come across as too arrogant, as that was not my intention. I simply wanted to give another perspective to the things you talk about every week on your great show. Keep up the good work, and hopefully this google wave thing works!

-Wei Wang

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*First, this is really about making the game stats more simplistic and less complex. This is about class balance and you're either for it or against it.
*Unique and imbalanced or Similar and balanced?
*Blizzard admits that there has been homogenization so it's not like it's some fantastical myth here:
This is true. The goal is to make it so players can see an item and know it's better much faster as opposed to needing a spreadsheet to help figure it out.
There has been a fair amount of homogenization lately, but I would say that each time it has happened we have grown more weary of doing it again. We currently don't plan to make every class function the same and have them maintain separate play styles.
Bornakk

Gamers: New age vs Old School

Mod of the Cast:
Hi Alachia,
After listening to your December 1st podcast I wanted to recommend a
great WoW Addon for yoir Vanity Pets that is much better than Kennel.
It's called PetLeash and it does everything you said you wanted from a
utility for your pets. It takes 2 minutes to download from Curse.com.

I love the show and keep up the great work!
Enjoy the addon!

AnnaGraham
Dreadlord Labor Union Gm
Earthen Ring

PFQ:
What's the oddest or funniest guild name you've seen or what is your guild name?
celticlucas funniest =
DouglasS28 Alliance Curfew Control
radiocd My favorite guild name is led by a priest named Juanshue. His guild is called "An Army of Juan". #warcast
Ejjii Mecha Shiva from Blackhand server
gbatuyong Hardcore Pwnography, My Lil' Pwny ...yes I've been ganked by both haha
jaminbee_007 a classic on all servers,
911guiltyjerk funniest I've seen is
gorgatz in our server the oldest and still active are Veritas, The Honor Guard, Tempora Heroica for Alliance side, Horde don't know
eljeppy National Elf Service
Tristan Oates an answer to ur question, the funniest guild name ive ever seen is would have to be 'Kamakaze Ninja Sushi'
Christian McDougall great episode today! My guild name is , but my favorite guild name is
Samantha Jane Brown "Kiss My Axe" - love it :3
Kim Jørgensen "King kongs lost nut" "Kermits assassins" and last but not least i havent seen this but the taverncast guys said this in one of the very first shows "We hump you when your dead"
Ap316 name of guild is The Illuminati. For the alliance!
J0NNNYW Funniest Guild name I've seen is [A]. Mine is (the band from tv show "Freaks and Geeks")
Shadowrayth My Guild on Zul'jin is "Horrortown Express". I named it from the /train emote. All abooooaaaard!!
SuzuaAra Funniest guild name I've seen is Ten Inches Unbuffed.

Photowalk: http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/
Badlands
Saturday 11am central Boulderfist PVP Alliance US servers

Links:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/warcast/
http://www.facebook.com/worldofwarcast

google wave.
wowcastpodcast@gmail.com

Twitter:
@alachia
@starmike
@worldofwarcast

email: starmike@worldofwarcast, alachia@worldofwarcast

worldofwarcast.com

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/worldofwarcast

Reboot

2009-12-12T05:13:00.002-06:00

Hallo there! Welcome to the new World of Warcast website.
We've been building this new home to help house a lot of the things we want to share that are supplemental to the podcast.

Mainly, we'd like to hear from you guys. We're looking for a lot of listener feedback which we'd like to broadcast on the episodes. We know how we play, we know how we feel about the game and after so many episodes, I'm sure you know how we feel about the game. We're looking to get other perspectives on how our community thinks about, plays, and feels about the World of Warcraft.

We've started this with our PFQ, Podcast Featured Question, section of the episodes which feature your twitter responses to our questions. They will now be fully featured here on the website in our Episode Guides.

However, we're also looking to feature bloggers, podcasters, and just every-day players as well. If you'd like to share and participate, please contact us at starman@worldofwarcast.com or alachia@worldofwarcast.com.

We're also moving forward in the web 2.0 world by testing out a Warcast Google Wave. Unfortunately, google wave is still in beta and can only be accessed through a beta invite. If you'd like an invite, just DM @alachia on twitter (first come, first serve). So far discussions in the wave have ranged from the new purchasable pets to the new Patch 3.3 LFG system.

And thanks to many great listeners, Starman was able to launch our Facebook fanpage in under a day! We'd love for this page to be more than a place holder so if you have any thoughts or suggestions as to what you'd like to see from it, please let us know!

Since Episode 90, Starman and I have been working to develop a show that best fits the two of us and we appreciate everyone's patience in allowing us to grow. We hope to keep pushing for more shows that offer up great discussions and community involvement.

/hug
/wave
/logout

WoW's hidden treasures: Grim Batol

2009-07-03T19:48:00.000-05:00

Editor's note: This is an idea I've had for a while - to write about the hidden corners of Azeroth that might have gone unnoticed, even before the XP boost. When I saw Kichelle mention on Twitter that she was checking out Grim Batol, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get this series started. I think Kichelle did a great job in writing about an area that I'm sure not many people have visited, or even heard of. -*

Here and there around Azeroth, there are places you may have stumbled upon at tender levels, where you suffered a swift and shocking death. This was due to the mass of level 58 elites that converged on you when you poked your curious nose into their zone. This has happened to me a few times, and hopefully you were enjoying your game enough for it to happen to you too! Once I reached level cap, it occurred to me (after I stopped dancing and got a little bored with heroics) to go back and do the exploring I’d wanted to do before, while getting a bit of one-shot revenge.

One such place is the elusive Grim Batol, tucked deep into a dragonkin guarded area of the Wetlands. It certainly wouldn’t be an easy place to find at the zone’s natural questing level. Once you hit the first Red Wyrmkin, it is rather a long walk to pass through the five ominous sets of Dragonmaw Gates, and the increasingly fearsome Wyrmkin to actually reach the door of Grim Batol. The way is littered with broken siege engines and the bones of huge dragons one does not normally encounter in Eastern Kingdoms. After passing through the final gate, protected by Scalebane Royal Guard, another broken siege vehicle on a small hill points the way to the entrance of Grim Batol.

Considering the carnage you are leaving behind you, at this point you are expecting anything, anything but…a deserted moss covered door that won’t open?! No guards in sight, no sad, lonely dwarf sitting by a fire waiting to tell you the story of this ruin. There are only the flags of the dragonkin that seem to hold the fortress, and the bones and broken weapons of would-be raiders on the steps.

The place appears to strongly resemble Ironforge, and there are lights in the towers that spark my curiosity as to who the inhabitants might be and what they are doing in there. I can’t handle the suspense, so a trip to WoWWiki.com answers a few questions for me.

It tells me that Grim Batol was founded by dwarfs, which could have been seen by anyone, but that the Red and Black Dragonflight took it after it was held for a brief time by orcs. The article writer speculates that something powerful is being protected or held inside, that the dragonkin are guarding ceaselessly. For more interesting lore, check out the article at http://www.wowwiki.com/Grim_Batol

Grim Batol’s name is peppered all over forums about WoW with questions about whether or not it will be opened up for a raid or 5 man instance in the future. With many players speculating that Blizzard is winding down for expanding content, this might be unlikely, given the amount of places in Azeroth like this. However, you never know…someday you might find yourself heading to Menethil Harbor with other players, preparing to face the dragons of Grim Batol, at the behest of Magni Bronzebeard or Thrall.

Don’t forget that there is more to the game than Ulduar and Dalaran, the places you might have hurriedly capered through in your quest for the level cap are filled with places for you to explore, if you have the time and the curiosity.

Sidenote: if you like to see the sights of Azeroth, go southwest from the door of Grim Batol, and pause for a moment on the very high cliff you will encounter. You can see the high faces of the Stonewrought Dam from here.

Children's Week: How to tick off everyone in one easy lesson

2009-05-01T12:30:00.000-05:00

The Children's Week minicast is going to be coming out later today, after Starman gets home from work and can get the music tacked on and posted. But here is my general impression from having played a little of the PvP part of things, and having gotten my most dreaded part, the Warsong Gulch flag return:

Put simply, from what I could tell, pretty much everyone is miserable in battlegrounds right now.

There are an awful lot of inexperienced BGers who are not geared for PvP, don't care if they win and don't want to be there, which ticks off the real BG players. So, some of the hardcore players then take it out on the inexperienced players by ruining any attempts at cooperation so people can get their achievements and get the hell out of there. You'd think they'd either stay out of BGs until things clear off, or they would welcome people getting their achievements and getting the heck out of there, but no, they view these poor folks as sitting ducks and free HKs. You'd think, then, that they (the hardcore BGers) would be happy with the free HKs, but with games going on forever, no flags getting capped, and no real game going on, it just pisses them off further, which makes them more inclined to do things like camp rez points, etc.

I got my achievement because a very nice Alliance DK decided to go into our flag room, and pick up and deliberately drop the flag over and over and let people return it. Of course, this got ruined in short order by another couple Alliance DKs who decided that they'd use this opportunity to shoot fish in a barrel.

I'm not sure what Blizzard was thinking when they put this achievement in. Did they hope that they would introduce battlegrounds to players who had never tried them, by making them go into them for this achievement? Because if this was my first exposure to battlegrounds, let me tell you, I'd tell you that rather have my toenails ripped out than go back into one of those again. I know they can be better than what I have experienced right now. The battlegrounds created by this debacle are places where tempers are even shorter than usual, and people aren't really playing the game or put in any situation where they are encouraged to play the game (really, get the achievement and leave is almost the only bearable solution).

I feel sorry both for people getting achievements and for people who just like and want to play battlegrounds -- though not sorry for the griefers who are taking advantage of the situation to make life as miserable as possible for anyone not "leet" enough for their league. I've heard stories of sustained cooperation and it would be nice to think that those are the rule rather than the exception. But so far, they're not. This is going to be an ugly, ugly situation for the next several days. I just want to close my eyes and get through it.

I keep reminding myself: this is a game.

I do this for fun and relaxation.

Yeah, right.

The next Ren-novation

2009-04-28T13:32:00.000-05:00

I didn't make up the term "Ren-novation". I credit/blame Christy from Analog Hole Gaming. But it's a good way to describe my fascination with stupid experiments.

Meet Ursalla.

Ursalla is an orc shaman who is currently level 3. Her goal in life is to get as many achievements as she can get at the lowest possible levels, with a few parameters. We are currently in the season of Noblegarden, so lately she has been working primarily on the Noblegarden quests. My plan is to get her "the Noble" title as early as humanly (well, in her case, orcly) possible, while trying to conform to a number of internal rules:

I will not do achievements that are simply a matter of spending money. No "My Sack is Gigantique", no buying seven bank slots, no buying pets for inflated prices off the auction house.

I will accept some help from my main (80 orc rogue) in terms of keeping her funded, sending her pets from places she can't easily go or couldn't acquire at her level (such as the pet vendor in Netherstorm, or non-BoP pets from the Oracle egg).

I will accept some occasional and limited help in the form of ports and summons. I accepted one port to Dalaran, so I can get to Shattrath and the major Horde cities easily. I will accept an occasional warlock summons if it would minimize my exploration experience, but NOT as a method for finishing an achievement. For example, I did accept a warlock summons to the hot springs in Un'goro, not because I am incapable of deathing my way across, but because I wanted to take out a chunk of exploration experience from Tanaris. However, I will walk (well, death-flop) my way from the hot springs to Silithus to finish a Noblegarden achievement there. I will not use a warlock summon to get somewhere I could only get with a flying mount, for example.

I also do not want to have a higher level clear paths for me. If I die, I die. I just won't bother wearing anything that requires repairs.

One of the challenges of this experiment is limiting experience gain. I want to level as slowly as possible because the point is to finish as many achievements as I can at the lowest levels possible. Exploration experience, then, is a real danger, but at the same time I want to do as much of it on my own as I can. The Noblegarden achievement set required traveling to Badlands, Tanaris, Desolace, Silithus, and Thousand Needles.

Ursalla walked from Undercity to Badlands. Well, perhaps "walked" is too generous a term; she death-flopped much of the way. As my friend Bean puts it, there is a difference between death-flopping and death-hopping.

Death-flopping means that when you die, you run to your body, move out to the furthest possible point where you can rez that goes in the direction you want to go, and then rez. Sometimes you get aggro immediately, and I have counted that in this case, you generally get 11-12 steps before you're brutally murdered in the average 20-30 zone. Curiously, I had to death-flop nearly 20 times to get across Hillsbrad, but only twice crossing Arathi, a higher zone.

Death-hopping is advancing by making it to the next area where you get into a graveyard that advances you along your path. Ursalla did almost no death-hopping for one reason: she was trying to minimize discovery experience.

But travelling through these areas means that you die. You die a LOT. The pink dress and bunny ears have no durability -- not much protection either, but it doesn't really matter.

I have found that, if you are of a level that's considerably lower than what the zone is rated for, you have to get further into a zone area to discover it than if you were of an appropriate level. If you stick to the roads, you can get little to no discovery experience at all. I didn't hit any discovery experience from Undercity until I was halfway through Hillsbrad. Unfortunately, most graveyards are located in the middle of discovery-ripe areas, such as right in Hillsbrad village, inside Tarren Mill, etc. So in cases where I felt that I might discover something by rezzing in a graveyard, I still ran to my body to retrieve it, even if that meant running back a considerable distance.

Sticking to the roads, making no detours for flight points, and being careful about not rezzing in graveyards if I thought it would mean an area discovery minimized my discovery experience. However, it could not be avoided entirely. By the time I had run from Undercity to the Badlands and planted my flower JUST inside the zone, I had gotten just over 400 experience by discovery, and dinged from level 2 to level 3. Similarly, my run from Thunder Bluff to Thousand Needles and Tanaris was similarly uneventful from a discovery standpoint; I managed to limit discovery to just five areas: Bloodhoof Village, Camp Taurajo, the Great Lift, Freewind Post, and the Shimmering Flats.

As I write this blog post, she has completed several achievements: Shave and a Haircut (free at level 1), Represent (bought a guild tabard), Second That Emotion (the emotion foods are edible at level 1), Can I Keep Him (1 pet), and the following Noblegarden achievements: Found One, Chocolate Lover (still needs to eat 40 more for Chocoholic), Shake Your Bunny-Maker, Hard Boiled, Spring Fling, Noble Garden, and Blushing Bride. She will finish Desert Rose and Chocholic later today after the servers have come back. My hope and plan is that she will still be level 3 when she gets "The Noble" title.

She is well on her way toward finishing A Simple Re-quest (complete the same daily quest on 5 consecutive days; the Spring Gather daily is doable at her level), Plenty of Pets (10 is easily doable), It's Always Happy Hour Somewhere (she's drunk 15/25 drinks -- amazing the amount of booze buyable in Dalaran that is drinkable at level 1) and Tastes Like Chicken (she's eaten almost half of the 50 foods needed at level 1; having a toon with every cooking recipe except for the chimerok chops and the new recipes that will be introduced next Thanksgiving helps a lot). At 5 she will start on profession-related achievements such as fishing up 2000 fish, etc. She also wants to /love critters, even if that means death-flopping her way across Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, and finding as many books to read as she can.

There's a surprising number of achievements that ARE possible at low levels. You just need a lot of patience, and a high tolerance for retrieving your body.

Who foots the bill for dual speccing?

2009-04-20T13:59:00.000-05:00

Last week, Blizzard released WoW patch 3.1 which brought many changes to the game, not the least of which was dual speccing. If you don't understand what dual speccing is, it's when you can change your talents on the fly between two predefined specs. Normally, if you want to try out a different spec you'd have to go to your trainer, pay upwards of 50g to lose all your talents, and reset them yourself manually. Now you can go to your trainer and pay a one-time fee of 1000g to have the ability to switch specs at any time you're not in combat.

The question is: who foots the 1000g bill for this? My raiding guild is not making people do it, nor are they giving people 1000g to do it for the good of the raid. They believe that everyone should have 1000g (some don't) and that if it's for the good of the raid, the player should do it. The problem I see with that is not everyone has a ton of gold. I only have 1240g. I generally do dailies and such to pay for flasks on the AH and repairs, and make sure I have a little aside for emergencies such as when I needed mats for the Titanium Spellshock Ring.

When Blizzard announced that dual speccing was going to be 1000g, some people thought it was too much. However, it does seem like a practical amount. If you switch between PvE and PvP specs every day like I know some people do, you save money after your 20th flip if you've reached the peak of 50g/respec.

I've been putting it off for a few days because in the years I've been playing a mage, I've only felt like I needed to be another spec when I was fire specced pre-Wrath, fighting A'lar in Tempest Keep who is immune to fire. Every other spec I've tried has always worked out for me. However, there seems to be a fight in Ulduar where frost mages come in handy. Should it be my responsibility to pony up the 1000g for the good of the raid, or should the guild pay some or all of that cost?

As some of you may know, I play a death knight on a PvP server. She's an alt, and I don't put as much time into her as I do my mage. My guild leader knows this, but I got a surprise in the mail on Saturday: 1000g with a note that said "Happy Repairs". My DK's guild does 25-man content, but I'm not even level 80 yet and yet my guild leader was kind enough to give me 1000g to pay for dual speccing.

Is this normal for guilds? Has your guild been paying some or all of the cost of respeccing, or do you have a requirement that your players should pay for it on their own?

Episode 80 is up

2009-04-06T19:47:00.000-05:00

Everyone's favorite pink princess joins us for another fun-filled episode. No, she doesn't swear.

Christy from AHG joins us
What's with Death Knights?
What to Death Knights offer?
Christy's ready for 3.1
Should you merge your account with Battle.net?
Gear changes to Battlegrounds and Arenas
Mage changes in 3.1
Blizzard takes twinking away
Some 3.1 news

Listen here

When does a new server stop being new?

2009-02-26T16:43:00.000-06:00

Answer: When it starts acting like an old one.

In late January 2009, I rolled up a new character on the Borean Tundra server, a brand new server that had opened on January 16. The server was just over a week old, and since it was closed to all new transfers for three months, I thought it would be a lot of fun to start over in brand new territory -- a born-again newbie on a born-again newbie server. I was most looking forward to running instances at level, with other people my own level, instead of being innundated with "Paying 5G for wc run plzplz!!" in Trade and General. So, with an eye to being desirable for pugs, since I didn't want to join a guild, I rolled up a blood elf priest.

This was not my first priest. I already had a priest on my home server, but I had not played her past level 34 and so long ago that I had forgotten how to play her, and I'd deleted her awhile ago.

My original intentions were to stay on Borean Tundra, at least until the AQ gates opened (I had missed much of that hoopla since I had been in the process of changing main servers at the time), or at least until it stopped being fun. I didn't realize that "stopped being fun" would come first.

At first, BT was all I had intended it to be. The newbie zones were full. There were groups everywhere looking for healers, and I had more opportunities to pug any instance I wanted than I could do. I did at-level pugs for RFC, WC, SFK, RFK, and SM graveyard and library wings. I had offers to do Gnomer and DM but I didn't end up going to those due to poor timing. I was counting every copper and silver; I didn't earn my 35g for mount money until I was almost level 35, and that meant forgoing my own training for 32 and 34.

But shortly after I got my mount, I realized that the times were a-changing.

There were enough 80s on the server now that I could see massive changes in the economy. Suddenly, there were twinks appearing and prices on gathered goods were going rapidly upward. Within two days of getting my mount, I had 40g again. There were fewer and fewer "lfg RFC" and more and more "paying for RFC run!!!" in city chat. People weren't as interested in running instances, even in their mid-30s, and more interested in just making the pell-mell push for 58, Outlands, 68, Northrend, 80.

In other words, it was becoming my home server, without my friends, my husband, access to my guild bank, and the earning power of my 80.

I went to BT for two challenges: playing the content thoroughly at level, and having to count my coins and make careful choices. These began disappearing rapidly at the mid-30s, and suddenly it wasn't different anymore. So I transferred her "back" to Whisperwind, familiar names in chat, and an 80 hunter husband who'd rush her through whatever she wanted.

It was something of a letdown, but it was fun while it lasted.

"Logins are In the Air"

2009-02-13T16:30:00.000-06:00

Please note: the Love is In the Air minicast was published on February 11th. If you are looking for specific details on how to do these achievements, please download this podcast. This blog entry is strictly an op-ed piece.


achievement:
Pronunciation: \ə-ˈchēv-mənt\
the act of achieving: to get or attain as the result of exertion
a result gained by effort b: a great or heroic deed


Apparently, in this case, "exertion" means the act of typing in your password and authenticator code in as often as possible.


"Love is in the Air" is Blizzard's Valentine's Day event. At a mere 6 days, it's one of the shortest event windows out there, with 12 achievements that count toward the meta-achievement (getting the title and counting toward the "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been" achievement and proto-drake), and 14 achievements in all. Here are the durations of other holidays with meta-achievements, with the number of associated achievements, past and future:

Winter Veil 2008/2009: 18 days, 12 achievements

Lunar Festival 2009: 20 days, 12 achievements

Children's Week: 7 days (well, it DOES say "week"), 8 achievements (only 7 for meta-achievement)

Midsummer Fire Festival: 14 days, 12 achievements

Brewfest: 13 days, 9 achievements (only 8 for meta-achievement)

Hallow's End: 15 days, 16 achievements


Love is In the Air has twice as many achievements as days to complete the entire cycle. Only Children's Week is nearly as short as Love is In the Air, but it's one more day and five fewer achievements to complete. The remaining ones are nearly two weeks or longer.


There is another important distinction between the Love is In the Air achievement set and the other ones: almost all of the achievements rely on two things: luck and the ability to log in many, many times a day. To finish this achievement set, you need to have acquired 20 Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets, 10 Handful of Rose Petals, 10 Silver Shafted Arrows, 10 Love Rockets, an unspecified number of Boxes of Chocolates, and an unspecified number of Bags of Candies. The "unspecified number" means that in addition to the random element of getting the Box or Bag in the first place, there is yet another random feature of getting the right combination of chocolates or make the correct types of 8 candies. The Box of Chocolates is relatively easy -- it's not uncommon to find four types in the same box, but I know at least one person who has gotten four Boxes of Chocolates and still hasn't sampled all four types.


I'll get to the real bugaboo -- the Bag of Candies -- in a moment.


Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets are relatively easy, since you get 2-4 of these every time you get a Gift/Pledge of Adoration.However, if you're unlucky with amounts, this means you are going to have to get ten Gifts/Pledges of Adoration to get enough bracelets to finish this.


The Love Fools are even easier because if you get in a group, you don't even have to have these yourself -- you just need to pity one, even if someone else drops it. You don't need a Romantic Picnic Basket, because all you have to do is find a picnic with the same faction in Dalaran, sit down and enjoy.


The Rockets, Arrows, and Petals are all controllable to an extent because you can acquire 5 of these any time you turn in a Horde or Alliance Gift Collection, so you have a way, through effort, of making up for any shortfall there. Still, unless you're willing to do the work to get six Horde/Alliance Gift Collections, you're not going to get all of your rockets, arrows and petals this way (not to mention this is assuming you dispose of all of these with no mistakes and don't need extras).


My real issue lies with the Bag of Candies. People across many, many servers are reporting an incredibly low drop rate with this particular item. You need to create 8 different candies using the bag, but you have no control over what you create. There are 10 charges per candy bag, so the chances of getting all 8 on your first bag are not high. Most reports I have heard suggest that most people need at least 3 bags to finish this achievement. True, there are some rare individuals who've gotten lucky, but these seem to be the exception, judging from the large number of complaint threads in the General, Customer Service, and Suggestions forums on the official boards. And the drop rate is unusually low -- some people are estimating 2-3%. Blizzard has admitted the drop rate might be too low and they are looking into the situation.


I finished the Love is in the Air achievement set late this morning. My first candy bag got me 7 out of 8 of the candies. The second candy bag yielded nothing new. I finally finished it on the third candy bag.


How many times did I log on and get my Gift/Pledge of Adoration to finish? The answer: thirty-four times.

Over six days, this would be an average of 5.67 hourly check-ins per day. And I know people who have logged on more than that who still have not finished the luck-based ones.


I can do this for one reason: I am self employed and work in the same office with my gaming computer. Every hour, I would log onto Maggie and get my Gift/Pledge of Adoration, set the timer I keep in my office, log off. When the timer goes off, I log on again, get another Gift/Pledge, reset the timer, rinse and repeat.


But, what about people with normal away-from-home jobs, or school, or kids with parents who won't let them log on hourly from morning to night? Blizzard has a tip about spending time with your friends out of World of Warcraft as well as in it, but this "achievement" seems to mean the opposite. As my friend Christy said, it's more like a stress test of Blizzard's login servers.


I don't mind difficult achievements. As much as I am not looking forward to some of the PvP achievements during Children's Week, for example, I'd rather do those than simply have a marathon login session in the hope that I MIGHT get lucky and get what I need to complete the achievement. Logging in, checking in with a guard, opening a package and logging out doesn't seem like I am really exerting any effort. It's just luck. Plain old, blind, random luck. And so much of this achievement set is purely that: random luck.


One suggestion made by Fuschia of the Shattered Hand server that I wholeheartedly endorse is to add the Bag of Candies to the Horde/Alliance Gift Collection reward options. This would allow people to farm those the way they can farm petals, arrows, or rockets, and give one more opportunity to substitute work for luck.


Oh, and the troll picture? That's Taheisha, my level 1 troll rogue I had ported up to Dalaran to make life easier for everyone. Whisperwind has a population of over 28,000, only 120 troll rogues over level 10, and only 24 over level 70, so that's not many troll rogues to throw rose petals at, particularly for Alliance characters. I made her to stand up on the north bank steps to help people finish the rose petal chucking achievement. Given the amount of time she spends with multiple stacks of rose petals, I'd guess the effort was appreciated.

Update: Apparently, Blizzard both claimed that the Bag of Candies was working as intended, but also applied a hotfix to increase the drop rate. Contradict much?

Interview with Felicia Day and Jeff Lewis from

2008-11-08T00:11:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry it took so long to get to, but my interview with Felicia Day and Jeff Lewis from The Guild is up.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/worldofwarcast/InterviewWithFeliciaDay.m4v

A review of the Recruit-A-Friend program

2008-11-02T11:04:00.000-06:00

Dace on our forums has done a well-written review of the RaF program. You can read it here.

Blizzcon '08

2008-10-10T11:28:00.000-05:00

Hi all. I don't have a ton of time to write. It's 8;30 PST and I'm still trying to organize the day. Yesterday was a whirlwind, I don't think today will be any less. I spent the first part of my day here napping since I'd been up since 4am EST. I got on line for my ticket and waited for a little over an hour. It wasn't bad, the line moved pretty quickly. I finally met up with Shawn Coons from How I WoW and on the way back to the hotel, I got a call from Molly from Women of Warcraft with whom I went out to dinner with. After that, drinks with Shawn and Patrick from How I WoW, Randy from The Instance, and Molly. Pictures are up here. Check back for more stuff later.

Proof!

2008-09-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

Back in the episodes about the reputation experiment, I observed that there seemed to be fewer Horde quests than Alliance, at least for quests that gave reputation. I expressed my belief at the time that this didn't apply just to reputation quests -- overall, there were simply more things for the Alliance to do in the old world than there were quests for the Horde.

The new achievement system has given me the proof.

The achievement system, which will be introduced in a patch prior to the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, introduces achievements for completing quests in the classic (pre-expansion) World of Warcraft, in the Outlands, and in Northrend. The quest achievements for Outlands and Northrend simply state "complete X number of quests in [Zonename]", with no differentiation between Horde and Alliance.

However, the classic quest achievements do make this differentiation, and it's pretty interesting: Alliance are directed to complete 740 quests in East Kingdoms and 765 quests in Kalimdor, a total of 1,505 quests. However, the Horde are directed to complete a mere 580 quests in East Kingdoms and 715 quests in Kalimdor, for a total of 1,295 quests.

This is not a "gimme" for the Horde. Yes, the Alliance will have to complete more quests, but the Alliance have far more quest density. The reason the Horde don't have to complete as many quests is simple: the Horde don't have as many quests they can do.

Some Alliance may think this is unfair, but it's truly an advantage for them. Greater numbers of quests mean more experience, more rewards, more reputation, and less work to find all of these things. Yes, they will have to complete more of them to get the achievement, but in some ways, this redresses the imbalance in the old world between the Horde's relative dearth of quests. Alliance can get exalted with reputations up to ten levels earlier than the Horde can. They can actually level a bit faster due to the experience bonuses connected with quests. The fact that the Horde could, in theory, complete this achievement faster is small compensation, given that by the time you get up to this level, Horde are having to dig under rocks to find quests to complete.

To me, this is an interesting historical note on Blizzard's early assumptions about the game. It's clear that Blizzard did this not because they "hate the Horde" -- they simply didn't expect as many people would want to play Horde and thus didn't put as much development into it. If the proportion of the achievement quests represents the differences in the actual numbers, there are 14% fewer Horde quests than Alliance quests.

It is true that overall, there are fewer players choosing Horde than Alliance, and if the census at Warcraftrealms is at all accurate, there are approximately 11% fewer players on the Horde side than on the Alliance side. But does this mean that they deserve a less rich experience? Obviously by the time The Burning Crusade came around, Blizzard agreed that the answer was no, because they put the sides on greater parity and gave them at least approximately the same number of things to do.

If nothing else, it's an interesting look into the early psychology of the initial WoW development team -- not to mention something of a vindication for me, since I got a fair number of emails from outraged Alliance players who told me I was nuts.

Episode 69: Pally roundtable and a new logo!

2008-09-28T14:29:00.000-05:00

It took weeks, but we finally got episode 69 scheduled and edited. Whew! Thanks to all our Paladins that helped put the roundtable together.

We also have a new logo! Renata's friend Damien Shamahan (Shamination on the boards) made a bitchin' new logo for is. Thanks, Damien! We also have the new logo on items in the World Of Warcast Store.

Will burn peasants for food

2008-09-18T15:42:00.000-05:00

It's official now: there will be no more attunement necessary to get into Onyxia's Lair. At first I thought "Yes! Easy gold at level 80", but then something inexplicable happened: I felt sorry for the little whelp. It used to be that you had to work your ass off to get into Onyxia's Lair. That goddamn quest line was a pain in the ass to do, mainly because it wasn't always easy to get a group of 5 that wanted to wander around Blackrock escorting Marshal Windsor around like he owned the friggin' place (could you pick up the pace? We have a dragon to kill). Not to mention the wipes, the respawns, getting it done on alts, killing miners in BRD that were happily mining until you set them ablaze looking in their pockets for a crumpled up piece of paper. I'm happy to not have to go through that again.

With the removal of the attunement, and the new level cap at 80, Onyxia and all the other old-world bosses are going to feel quite lonely. Sure, a few people looking to pad their Achievement List might still poke their nose in there and see if they can solo the old bird, but she's pretty much going to be curled up in a ball with nobody to talk to. The same goes for the bosses in Molten Core and Blackrock Spire. All this work these bosses do to get to the top, spewing about how they'll be running Azeroth, only to be toppled by a small group of level 80s that can kill them by pretty much spitting on them.

Maybe Blizzard should change the voiceovers on these bosses. Ragnaros can say "What? You've toppled Illidan? Well, go easy on me. Better yet, have these things and leave me be. I have this ring. One of you take it and go. Here's some gold too". Or Onyxia can just cower in a corner, showering players with gold and loot while waving her paw at the players to leave her alone.

I also though of another issue and that's future expansions. How much is really left? Two I can think of off the top of my head are The Emerald Dream and The Maelstrom. Once those two are implemented (if ever), unless Blizzard thinks of something new, perhaps they should think about booting these bosses from their roosts and putting in new ones with new instances. One thing that annoys me about MMORPGs is how static the world is when you as a player are doing so much around it. There should be some world event where something happens to these old-world dungeons. I say nuke the site from orbit-it's the only way to be sure.

Blizzard offers wallpapers/ringtones, just not to the USA

2008-08-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

If you look up "epic fail" in the dictionary, you'll see such things as blinking into High King accidentally or speccing fire just for A'lar. Blizzard put up a web site for mobile users: http://mobile.blizzard.com which offers mobile users ringtones and wallpapers based on Blizzard games.

First of all, Blizzard is VERY late to the game. As far back as I can remember, people have been putting up ringtones and wallpapers on their cell phones, even if they hack the phones to do it. I had to go through extremes just to get a wallpaper on my Motorola T720 years ago.

Today it's as simple as putting a wallpaper on your memory stick (Sony Ericsson), or adding it to your photo library (iPhone). Ringtones may be a little more tricky on iPhones, but the Sony Ericsson supports ringtones of almost any kind (MP3, WAV, MP4) that come directly from the memory stick.

So why would people pay for wallpapers and ringtones nowadays? Back when you used to hack your phone to customize it, it was because your carrier forced you to do it (I'm looking at YOU, Verizon). That was the reason why I terminated my contract early with Verizon in the first place. They crippled their branded phones to force you to go through their store to customize your phone, whereas the exact same phone on another carrier like Cingular wouldn't have such restrictions.

What's worse for Blizzard is that they don't support the United States. AT ALL. Don't they understand that by not supporting the USA, they're going to seed the idea in people's heads about how to do it for free? Those few people that would rather pay $1.99 for something are now going to find free ways to do so.

If a company with popular frachises like Blizzard is going to go into the mobile arena, they have to support their largest markets.

Blizzcon lottery emails going out

2008-08-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

Several people are reporting that they've received winning lottery notifcations for the Blizzcon ticket lottery, including Shawn Coons from How I WoW. Check your emails!

World Of Warcast makes the grade on alltop.com

2008-08-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

For those of you that don't know, alltop.com is a site that aggregates news of a certain category and places the top sites in a list for people to browse through. For World Of Warcraft, our site made the list.

http://world-of-warcraft.alltop.com/ (scroll to the bottom)

Episode 68 is up

2008-08-17T16:23:00.000-05:00

Starman's going to Blizzcon
Starman goes mage horde. Again.
Coming back to the game after a break
Competitor's Tabards
Blizzcon
Recruit-A-Friend
Wrath of the Lich King:
- Glyphs (Inscribing)
- Hunter Pets
Newbie Tips

iTunes or Direct Link

3,000 more Blizzcon tickets coming via lottery

2008-08-14T08:37:00.000-05:00

After the problems Blizzard had with their ticketing system, Blizzard President Mike Morhaime personally apologized for the problems with their web site and said that Blizzard will be offering up 3,000 more Blizzcon tickets by reevaluating their floor space at the convention hall. The tickets will be offered up via lottery to players that had a working Blizzard account as of the time the tickets became sold out (August 12, 2008, 9PM PST).

Click here to read Mike Morhaime's post.

There are a lot of good people that didn't get tickets and I'm not keen on lottery systems, but I think that this is an excellent move on Blizzard's part. I hope that some of the people in my guild that didn't get tickets can get a ticket now. I also know of people that made travel plans with the assumption from previous Blizzcons that tickets wouldn't be this hard to get. I hope they get in also.

Blizzcon store errors cause epic fail

2008-08-13T12:14:00.000-05:00

This year has to be one of the most anticipated Blizzcons ever. Not only will there be a playable version of Wrath of the Lich King, but we'll more than likely see the WotLK opening cinematic, but we'll more than likely get updates on Starcraft II and Diablo III.

With all this anticipation, many people tried to get tickets on August 11 when the Blizzard Store started selling tickets. Nobody was able to get tickets, and the store had become slow, then started spitting out errors just as people were confirming their purchases, and then the site went dead altogether.

Blizzard announced that nobody had been able to buy tickets when the store opened and that it would be brought up as soon as possible. In what was probably the biggest spammng of "refresh" in the history of the internet, people kept trying the Blizzard Store, hoping to get their tickets before people realized that the store was back up.

Slowly, the site came back up, and went back down. Over and over again, the store teased people into believing that tickets were available, only to pull the rug out from under them. People were finally reporting that they were able to buy tickets and got their confirmation emails. Other people reported clicking the last button they had to, only to be brought to the Murloc Error Page, leaving the user to try again.

This is where the story takes a nasty turn. Those people that did try again found that they were charged multiple times for their purchases. What this means was that the store's server marked the transaction complete, but returned an error to the user. The user would naturally believe that the transaction didn't go through and tried again. One person even reported being charged 30 times for a total of $3000!

The problems didn't end there. Towards the end of the afternoon, people found they had 1 or more tickets in their cart, they go to check out, and get an error that the tickets were no longer in their cart and that there were no more tickets available. Ticket sites like ticketmaster.com will "hold" the tickets for you for a few minutes. I've seen it average at 3 minutes. This reserves those seats for you for that session for three minutes and the tickets stay in your cart for that time. With the Blizzard Store, even though the tickets were in your cart, they weren't held for your sessions like ticketmaster.com does. Needless to say, this caused a lot of people to complain that Blizzard shouldn't have done that, and I would have to agree with that feeling. If something's in your cart, the electronic store shouldn't take the items away from you on a whim.

Afterwards, Blizzard announced that there was still a block of tickets left and will be sold at 8PM PST. Were these "reserve" tickets from the multiple transactions people saw earlier? I haven't found any evidence to say whether or not they were. The server went down about 2 minutes before, and came back up about 1 minute after the hour. Some people were able to snag tickets, others saw the tickets in their cart disappear as the tickets were listed as "sold out" again.

This leads me to the conclusion that Blizzard should not have handled the ticketing themselves. It should have been handed off to a system that has the capability of handling this kind of scenario. Don't think for a minute that ticketmaster.com couldn't have handled it. When thousands of people are trying to snag Springsteen tickets in the NJ/NY area and the site manages to do reasonably well, 12,000 Blizzcon tickets would have been a joke to the ticketmaster servers. I would have gladly paid an extra $5 for a ticket if it meant a smoother transaction for myself and others involved.

I hope in the future that Blizzard does a better job at handling this kind of scenario. Several good people from my raiding guild aren't going because of this mess and it's a shame because they're some of the best players in the game.

It's time Blizzard gave us better management tools in WoW

2008-08-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

Everquest. There, I said it. If there's one thing that Sony has over Blizzard is that it went through the trouble of giving their players some wonderful tools for managing their characters and the people they interact with. I don't play EQ2 as much as I used to, but I miss the tools quite a bit and I wish Blizzard would get around to implementing some or all of the ones listed below. With Wrath of the Lich King around the corner, I believe it's time for Blizzard to finally give us some of the tools that in my opinion, should have been offered at least a year or two ago.

Instant Messaging with players in and out of the game

This is huge, and SOE gave us EQIM around 2001. It's an application that runs under Windows and allows people to talk to guild members and friends in-game. This means you don't need to have the entire game loaded just to talk to people, and it saves the people in-game from having to load a chat client on their machine.

For Everquest 2, SOE made the chat web-based.

Cross-server communication

This has been a staple of EQ, EQ2, and Star Wars Galaxies for many years. Not only can you communicate with people in other realms of the game you're playing, but you can talk to people in other games!

Integrated Web Browser

Sony introduced this with Everquest 2 last year. Type /browser and you get a browser. It's as simple as that. No alt-tabbing required. A great idea would be if Blizzard could perhaps allow direct linking between items and their own database for extended information. It wouldn't have to bring up a whole browser, maybe the equivalent of a popup window.

Quest history

Ever share a quest with someone and the game replies back "Bob has completed that quest"? So why can't Blizzard give the users the ability to look at which quests we did? Everquest 2 not only lists the quests you have, but gives you 75 quest slots, the date you did them, categories, the date you got the quest, and every completed quest you ever did. This would be a great way to see if you completed a group quest before going out to do it with friends.

Better guild management tools

Everquest 2 simply kicks ass in this. EQ2's guild management tools tells you exactly what every member of your guild has done, and you can choose what to see and what not to see. It shows who dinged, what achievements they got, what epic drops they looted, when they level up a tradeskill (which doesn't happen as often in WoW, it's like getting an adventure level), and other things.

Better 'looking for guild' tools

In EQ2, guilds that are looking for new members don't spam channels, they simply advertise on the Looking For Guild networkand are do a writeup of what exactly their looking for, what kind of guild they are, and who to contact.

Better auction house searches

EQ2 allows you to search by item type, stat, class, level range, rarity, and price.

I realize that Blizzard is keeping itself busy with their new expansion, but hopefully they'll find some way to incorporate these changes into WoW soon. It's been almost four years now and these changes really don't seem that difficult to implement and it would save so much traffic on the General and Trade channels.

R.I.P. Azeroth

2008-07-13T16:04:00.000-05:00

My 63 orc rogue has just entered her last old world Azeroth zone, Silithus, having completed all but instance quests in all the other pre-TBC zones. This is part of my experiment to complete as many of the old-world quests as I could finish, short of instance and raid quests. I still may be able to finish some of the raid and instance quests, as several of my guildmates have expressed some interest in revisiting the old stomping grounds of Scholomance, Stratholme, UBRS, and the like, although so far nobody has been chomping at the bit to, say, take a whack at Onyxia or revisit Molten Core.

Entering Silithus last goes counter to my usual method of saving something good for last, but I just could never bring myself to go into Bugland until forced. It's never been a favorite zone, for a variety of reasons: too many mobs, too many tedious "kill 20" quests that always bring unwanted adds, too little interesting loot, too much sand, too many bugs. At my current rate I may or may not hit 64 before I'll have run out of old-world content, minus the instances.

It's been lonely at the top.

The last several zones I have done have been pretty much deserted. I only saw one gnome in Burning Steppes, and only because he was level 42 and had come to desecrate the Horde fire during the Midsummer Festival. In Winterspring, I had the unusual experience of having the furlbog camps almost completely to myself, only encountering a single dwarf hunter who killed one and ran off. There was a little traffic around Everlook, again due to the festival, which dried up as soon as July 6th rolled around. While I saw a few high 50s in Western Plaguelands, I saw exactly three people the entire time I was in Eastern Plaguelands: a night elf who watched as Cryler and I did the Darrowshire event, a lost single-digit-level blood elf who didn't know he could use the teleporter to leave blood elf lands and was trying in vain to run across EPL, and one human warlock ten levels below me who poked her head in one of the towers while I was flipping it and decided not to challenge me for it.

I've gotten some random whispers from people wondering why, in my early 60s, I'm "wasting my time" in these zones. My guildies think I'm a little nuts for remaining, when at 63 I should be finishing up with Zangermarsh and about to tackled Terrokar Forest (they understand what I am doing, and why, but they still think I'm a little touched in the head).

On the one hand, it's quiet and peaceful, and I get all the thorium to myself.

On the other hand, it's a little sad to see the desolation. Zones that once bustled with people, activity, calls for groups, and chatter in General are now virtual wastelands. People are only using zones up until 58, and immediately drop whatever they're doing and hightail it to Hellfire. I can't say I really blame them. I've been buying auction greens out of the AH and everything puts even the old world blues appropriate for a 60 to shame. If it wasn't for disenchanting, I'd have no use for them either. The experience is cold-molasses slow. If it wasn't for the high price of gatherables like thorium and mithril, the money would really suck.

Blizzard has said that the gear reset on WOTLK will not be as high. I hope not. The incredible leap in gear quality and money rewards you get right from the onset questing at 58 in Outlands are the two death knells of the high level, old world zones. If it wasn't for an artificial reason to do as many old world quests as I could, I'd have no reason to be out here either. The quests aren't a great deal more fun (and in the case of Silithus, a great deal less so). The scenery isn't that much better (repeat Silithus comment here), and it's not like the zones are laid out more conveniently or have better reputation rewards (can you tell I really, really hate Silithus?).

I fear that, by this time next year, I'll be writing the obituary on some of the upper level zones in Outlands, unless Blizzard makes some effort to tie these two expansions together a little better. Why bother with Blades' Edge when you can leap up to the new Northrend zones and get better loot for less effort? Perhaps in a year, I'll be grinding away at 73 in Netherstorm and I'll get some random /whisper, "dude why u wastin ur time in there??!?"

Episode 66 is up

2008-07-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

Blizzard Authenticators

Midsummer Festival

Renata vs. the G15 keyboard

Diablo III

Patch 2.4.3 notes

Mod of the Cast - Mob Info II

Listen on iTunes or click here.

DING! Three

2008-07-02T14:19:00.000-05:00

Three years. If someone told me the show would still be running three years later and that we'd be the longest running WoW podcast, I would tell them they were off their Elekk.

I started the show as a way to continue doing broadcasting of some kind after there were all these broadcast fees with copyrighted music. I had a background in radio and loved doing it as a hobby, but it was impractical on the internet.

I also like teaching people. I guess it came from having teachers as parents, but I despised teaching. My dad let me teach his physics class a few times and it was great, but his stories about politics and the crap he took from students really turned me off from teaching as a profession.

I also don't like teaching computer science. I don't know why because I love reading about it. I think there's something a little cold about computers that I can't bring to people, but I can teach gameplay. World Of Warcraft allows people do to so much and I feel privileged that people still listen to the show after all these years and hear what we have to say.

So I'd like to thank everyone involved in the show in every way: the listeners, the bloggers, the fellow podcasters, the guests, Blizzard, Lindyen, and of course, Renata for her undying dedication to this show.

Episode 65 is up

2008-06-28T12:30:00.000-05:00

Blizzard announces SecureID for accounts

And Blizzard announces Diablo III!

Mage Roundtable with Christy from Analog Hole Gaming, Dave from In The World, and a special guest.

iTunes suubscription

Direct link

Blizzard announces Diablo III!

2008-06-28T09:48:00.000-05:00

At the Blizzard World Wide Invitational this morning in Paris, France, Blizzard announced that they will be releasing the long-awaited Diablo III. More information to come as I find it. Their web site is currently having problems, but if you want to try, click here.

Secure logins coming to World Of Warcraft

2008-06-26T15:07:00.000-05:00

On the heels of what I just wrote about Blizzard needing to beef up security, Blizzard announced today that they will be introducing a SecureID-type device that's associtated with your account. What this does is generate a random number that you put into your login screen. You and ONLY you know this code and it's generated every few minutes.

Click here to read all about it on Blizzard's FAQ site about this device.

Will you recognize when you make a mistake?

2008-06-25T11:40:00.000-05:00

Last night, Alachia posted that her account got hacked. I know that Alachia takes steps to protect her computer, but it made me wonder if perhaps Blizzard couldn't do something extra to help the users.

When people ask this question on the WoW forums, the consensus is that anyone who gets hacked is "stupid" and that they deserve to get hacked because they're a "failure". Oh, REALLY?

Take the latest Flash virus. If you clicked a Flash video before it was known there was a problem, are you "stupid" for not knowing that there was an exploit? Virus software generally gets updated once every few days by default. You could set that to check more often, but the point is that there could be a window in which a trojan gets in your system before you get a chance to download the udpate and scan your computer.

It's an annoying cat and mouse game just to play WoW.

The fact that people need to be made aware of viruses, how to prevent them, and worst of all, need to spend time dealing with it, is an unfortunate side effect of being online today.

But will you recognize when you make a mistake? If you get lax someday, will you realize it? Will you be aware that you've done something that might seem insignificant and yet has unleashed something on your computer that even your virus scanner and zonealarm isn't aware of? Perhaps.

So I ask this: would it be prudent of Blizzard to implement tools on the back end to check where someone is trying to log into your account from? Let's remove the point about protecting your own computer and that you're responsible for what happens to it. Now the problem shifts from losing your hard work of building up your character for the last 4 years to Blizzard needing to spend time getting all those items back for you. Yes, it's much easier to replace items than it is to roll a new toon, but sometimes people don't get their accounts back.

People claim that if you get hacked you deserve it. I'll bet those people won't feel the same if it happened to them. People make mistakes, they shouldn't have to pay a high price for them. I also think that the amount of effort Blizzard could put in to even put in the smallest bit of protection for the users could save both Blizzard and its customers a lot of time.

A Warm Place

2008-06-24T10:08:00.000-05:00

The Midsummer Fire Festival started in Azeroth. Previously, this was one of the absolute lamest holiday festivities in the game. This year, Blizzard put a new twist on the festiviites.

Previously, the best item you could get was the [item]Captured Flame[/item], a little red wisp that followed you everywhere. The other items were a set of shoulders and headpiece which were pretty useless. Pets are at least interesting to show off and don't require you to change equipment to do so. In order to get the [item]Captured Flame[/item] you had to visit each opposing factions' bonfires and steal them all.

This year, there's a Midsummer Fire Festival vendor which sells items based on the number of Burning Blossoms you have. This year, I went for the [item]Brazier of Dancing Flames[/item].

Apart from the prizes, you either get a boatload of gold, or a boatload of XP. This year, Blizzard put bonfires in most of the flightpoints and towns in the game for both factions. If you honor your faction's bonfire you get 5 Burning Blossoms, and at most 5000 XP if you're under level 70, or 5g 99s if you're level 70. If you visit an opposing faction's bonfire, you get 10 Burning Blossoms, and at most 9000 XP if you're under level 70, or 11g 99s if you're level 70.

This allowed me to go from 56 to 58 in less than a day without doing anything more than going from flight point to flight point. I would suggest checking WoWWiki's page on the festival to get a list of bonfires to visit for each faction so that you spend less time travelling and more time getting XP or gold.

There are two daily quests that you can do: Torch Catching and Torch Tossing. Torch Tossing is easy, you toss a torch into marked spots in a certain period of time. TIP: Set up a hotkey for your torch. Torch Catching is where you throw torches in the air and catch them as they fall. TIP: follow the shadow of the torch on the ground. The first toss is always high and long, the others are short.

Episode 64 is up: win Blizzard Invitational tix

2008-06-12T18:46:00.000-05:00

News
More WotLK info
Interview with DJ Wheat from CGS
Win tickets to the Blizzard Invitational in France!
Coming soon: win Blizzcon tickets!
Mod of the cast: Ackis Recipe List

Don't panic!

2008-06-12T11:49:00.000-05:00

I'm moving the whole thing to Wordpress!

And other goodies.

Episode 57 is up

2008-03-21T18:06:00.000-05:00

News
Renata's Reputation Guide

Renata gives an in-depth report on how to get exalted rep on the Alliance side before 40, and how the Horde side is vastly different.

Episode 56 is up

2008-03-13T21:27:00.000-05:00

News
Class Roundtable - Druids
Mod of the Cast - Quest Helper

We invite druids from World Of Warcraft to talk about the class, how they're played, their roles in raids, and what you can do to play the class better.

Episode 55 is up

2008-02-13T01:29:00.000-06:00

Patch 2.4 notes
Second Skin update

Episode 54 is up

2008-01-26T03:31:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul supporters attack Whisperwind
Spirit Wolf changes
Gold Farmer scams
Gear Reset in next expansion
Blizzcast
Rogues with Sneeq

Episode 53 is up

2007-12-29T16:57:00.000-06:00

Ren's back!
News
Starman hits 70...again
2.4 changes
Mod of the Cast - Sanity2
Dell M1730 for Five THOUSAND dollars

Minicast 3 - Interview with Ed Fries of figureprints.com

2007-12-11T09:13:00.000-06:00

Ed Fries, former Microsoft employee and current CEO of http://www.figureprints.com sat down with me to talk about his amazing new company.

Click here

Episode 52 is up

2007-12-07T14:22:00.000-06:00

Starman joins the dark side
2.3 impressions
Warden issues
Guild bank robberies
Shaman issues with 2.3
Mod of the Cast: Multi Button Bar

Episode 50 posted

2007-10-19T09:36:00.000-05:00

Episode 50 is up. Grab it on iTunes.

In this show: Patch 2.3 notes.

There were a LOT of patch notes to cover, and we didn't even go through all of them.

Godaddy codes!

2007-08-28T00:54:00.000-05:00

WARCRAFT - Save an additional 10% on any order
WARCAST - Save an additional $5 of any order of $30 or more
STARMAN - get your .COM domain name for just $7.95 a year

Some restrictions apply, see site for details

Godaddy

Episode 47 is up

2007-08-28T00:47:00.000-05:00

PvP with Christy from Analog Hole Gaming
Mod of the Cast - Chatlink

Episode 46 is up

2007-08-10T10:57:00.000-05:00

Blizzcon with Patrick

Episode 45 is up

2007-08-04T23:11:00.000-05:00

Are attunements done right?
2.2 Patch Notes
Letter of the week
Mod of the Cast

Episode 44 is up - interview with Dragons from The Syndicate

2007-07-17T09:52:00.000-05:00

Episode 44, which is Guild Management Part III, is finally up.
We're very honored to have Dragons from The Syndicate on our show. The Syndicate is the oldest guild in gaming history and we're proud to have Dragons on the show.

You can order his new book "Legends of The Syndicate" here

Starman and Renata interviewed for Escapist Magazine

2007-07-02T15:16:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago we had a great interview with Michael Zenke of Escapist Magazine. It was just published.

Click here to read

Episode 42 is up

2007-06-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

Starman, Renata, and Thay discuss Guild Management. It ran so long we decided to stop so that we can do a part 2 this week. Look for that in a few days.

Episode 40 is up

2007-04-30T13:14:00.000-05:00

The show turns 40 before we do!

We delve into the patch notes for 2.1!
Blizzard announces Blizzcon. Who's going?
Leveling guide from wow-pro.com
Mod of the Cast - STFU

Episode 38 is up

2007-04-04T12:32:00.000-05:00

Renata takes the day off because of an unprotected trip through the Plaguelands, so Cryler fills in.

Has BC changed guild dynamics.
Rant about not being able to change tailoring specialties.
Botanica.

Episode 37 is up

2007-03-19T09:50:00.000-05:00

This is the cast we did with the Second Skin crew. Enjoy!

World of Warcast - The Motion Picture

2007-03-15T09:21:00.000-05:00

I know I've been hinting at this, but now's the time to make the big reveal. Today, Victor Pineiro and his crew from Pure West Docs are coming to my house to film Renata and I record an episode of World of Warcast for their new documentary Second Skin. Not only will this be a documentary that puts MMO gamers in a positive light, but it will be shown at Sundance in September. Ren and I have never met so they're filming us meet for the first time. It's going to be a great way to document meeting someone!

This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that I decided to take because you never know when it's going to happen again, if ever.

Special thanks to Alachia for letting us know about it on her show and on her blog. /hugs.

Episode 36 is up

2007-03-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

News

Thoughts on The Armory

Are there more banned players?

Programming your G15

Renats tells you about the Karazhan Key Quest

Big surprise Thursday

2007-03-09T15:44:00.001-06:00

Don't you just LOVE surprises? Ren and I will be doing the show together for the first time on Thursday. Why? That's the surprise....

iTMS creates WoW podcast section

2007-03-05T13:34:00.000-06:00

So, even on my 1920x1200 screen, I don't always see everything on the iTunes main page. For no reason, I decided to scroll to the bottom of the Podcast section and I found this:

Finally! We all get our own podcast section. And it's kindasorta named after us.

Anyway, grats to all the WoW podcasters out there.

Episodes 34 and 35 are up

2007-02-23T00:23:00.000-06:00

Um, so, uh, yeah, I didn't post that 34 was up. Sorry about that, Chief.

Episode 33 is up

2007-01-29T09:52:00.000-06:00

Lots of BC info.
Renata does her review of the Blood Elf and Dranei newbie zones.
Starman has self-leveling tips.

Blogs

2007-01-18T15:17:00.000-06:00

Blogging is something that I've been doing since before they called it blogging. I had a web site way back in '95 or so that I used to do this sort of thing. I'm trying to reconstruct it all, but for now, this is the best I can do. Ren has one also, so check them out.

Starman's Blog

Renata's Blog

The big 3-0 about the big 2-0

2006-12-13T10:43:00.000-06:00

Episode 30 is up. We just express our thoughts about the 2.0 patch.

What happened?

2006-11-14T15:09:00.000-06:00

No, we're not dead.

On Nov. 8, around 1:30pm EST, our old host Vizaweb just up and croaked. We have no idea why. They have not yet returned our emails and are not answering their phones.

Since they were giving us trouble in the past, Renata and I decided to move to a new host. If you can see this message, our new IP address has propagated to you.

Two days later, Vizaweb came back from the dead, but it was too late. We had already started working on the new server and transferred the registration.

podcast.xml has been placed back on the system so that the feeds still work.

We have since upgraded the forums to vBulletin, and all the usernames have been carried over! We did prune the forums; some of the articles were quite dated.

I backed up the database for the front page so I'll be restoring that later tonight.

Episode 28 is up

2006-11-06T11:06:00.000-06:00

WoW TCG

Honor System Changes in BC

Healing Changes in BC

Combat Rating System Changes in BC

Etiquette in Raids

Enjoy!

Podcast files moved

2006-10-05T16:01:00.000-05:00

If you're having problems downloading episodes, go to your podcast list in iTunes, right click on the "World of Warcast" title in iTunes, and click on "Update Podcast".

I had to move the files from our old server to libsyn, so chances are you have an older RSS feed. Updating the podcast should fix the problem.

*

Episode 23 Part 1 is up - with Leo Laporte

2006-07-04T09:45:00.000-05:00

In Part 1 of our one year anniversary show, I go one-on-one with Leo Laporte of This Week In Tech (TWiT) about the last year of podcasting, and we chat a bit about WoW.

Our one year anniversary

2006-07-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

One year ago today our first show appeared on iTunes. Thanks to everyone for their support this last year.

World of Warcast Store is ONLINE

2006-05-23T10:13:00.000-05:00

World of Warcast is proud to announce the opening of its store. You can find T-shirts, mugs, mousepads, and other goodies.

Click here for the World of Warcast Store

Episode 20 is up

2006-05-22T10:15:00.000-05:00

Episode 20 is available on iTunes.

Special guest: Cryler

Topics:
Starman does something stupid
News - 1.11 patch, mage changes, new authentication servers
Hunter pets
Mod of the cast: WT_ZoningTimeFix

Episode 19 is up

2006-05-22T10:13:00.000-05:00

Episode 19 is available on iTunes.

Special Guest: Infernalbill

Topics:
News: upcoming 1.11 patch
Warlocks
Balancing WoW and a family

Episode 18 is up

2006-05-22T10:10:00.000-05:00

Episode 18 is available on iTunes.

News
Warrior's Den: Aggro Management
Mod of the Cast: Telo's Self-Cast

#1 in Enhanced Audio + Images!

2006-05-05T00:27:00.000-05:00

Alachia at Wowcast.net just sent me an IM that our show made #17 on the iTunes A&E list, and #1 on the Enhanced Audio + Images. It's nice to see the hard work pay off!

Episode 17 is up

2006-04-10T23:20:00.000-05:00

Introduction
News
Guild Events with Kirnkaterre
Mod Wrangling
Mod of the Cast

And APRIL FOOLS! (real late)

World of Warcast, Taverncast makes iTunes' Gaming section

2006-03-29T07:38:00.000-06:00

Final 1.10 Patch Notes

2006-03-28T11:12:00.000-06:00

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patchnotes.html

Episode 16 is up

2006-03-26T18:13:00.000-06:00

Renata visits EQ2
Priest correction from the last show
Donation!
Logitech G15 keyboard issue
Cryler and Shadow Priests
Playing the Auction House
Paying for Tradeskill Work?
Mod of the Cast: Sell Value

Taverncast added to the PC Gamer Podcast Directory

2006-03-10T11:19:00.000-06:00

We'd like to tip our hats to Taverncast for being added to PC Gamer's Podcast Directory. Congratulations, guys!

Episode 14 is up

2006-02-21T20:25:00.000-06:00

...And it's a doozie

Valentine's Day
1.10 Patch
Life After 60
Lineage II
Soundtrack
Brian's Mic Dies

Taverncast featured on iTunes!

2006-02-10T13:29:00.000-06:00

Taverncast was prominently displayed in the iTunes podcast directory yesterday. Grats, everyone!

Welcome WoWcast to our list of links

2006-02-07T13:17:00.000-06:00

Admittedly, I haven't had much time to listen to many WoW podcasts. Every day I'm listening to something, be it TWiT, Diggnation, TC, Gamecast Online...there's just not enough time in the week (and in the car) to listen to everything. I finally got around to listening to WoWcast (note the similar name :) ) and Alachia has put together a very good show. We welcome her to the WoW podcast family. You can find the link to her show on the left. Maybe she'll come by for a visit someday.

MP3 support officially cancelled

2006-02-06T13:33:00.000-06:00

I realize that there are listeners out there that don't use iTunes or iPods to listen to the show. The problem is that it takes time to put together two formats, and the number of MP3 downloads was so insignificant that it didn't warrant the extra time to support it anymore. Therefore, I'm officially cancelling MP3 support and moving ahead with AAC.

AAC is an open format from Apple which offers much more than MP3 files. It supports chapter stops, web links, chapter artwork, better compression, and exports directly from GarageBand which is what I use to edit the show.

You can still convert the show to MP3 using iTunes. Select "MP3" as your import type and when you get a new episode, right click on it and convert it to MP3.

Episode 13 is UP!

2006-01-31T18:22:00.000-06:00

This week's topics are:

Chain pulling in Molten Core
Renata's Week
War Effort
OOC Rezzing
Raid Leading
Auto-Profit Tool

World of Warcast gets a 4.5/5 from Virgin Worlds!

2006-01-30T13:11:00.000-06:00

Eloysius sent me a link of a site that rated all the WoW podcasts. We eeked out a .5 above TC :). How THAT happened, I don't know since ying and yang usually work out equally. Anyway, you can read the whole thing here.

World of Warcast Returns

2005-12-25T00:47:00.000-06:00

Welcome back, everyone. As of January, 2006, World of Warcast will be coming back with newcomer Renata from the Taverncast forums, and podcast veteran Asros from Gamecastonline.com and Taverncast. I'd like to thank them for their support during the transition period (and getting my ass in gear). The forums are partially active. Hope to see you soon!

Bindpoint

2005-12-12T05:00:00.000-06:00

Chat Live in Bindpoint

Donations

2005-12-12T04:39:00.000-06:00

Donate to World of Warcast

Godaddy codes

2005-12-11T16:18:00.000-06:00

Godaddy codes

WARCRAFT - Save an additional 10% on any order

WARCAST - Save an additional $5 of any order of $30 or more

STARMAN - get your .COM domain name for just $7.49 a year

Some restrictions apply, see site for details

Godaddy

About

2005-12-11T14:13:00.000-06:00

About

World of Warcast launched it's first episode July 2, 2005 and has been dedicated to discussing and dishing news about World of Warcraft to listeners ever since. The podcast covers as wide range of topics spanning from current WoW news to game play and all intrigue surrounding the MMORPG cultural phenomenon.

About Starman

Starman has been playing with audio since his father bought a reel-to-reel tape deck in 1971, and has a background in radio since the days at Trenton State College in the mid-late 80’s. He’s played videogames since getting a Coleco Telstar Arcade in 1976, and had an Atari 2600 since 1978. As with most current MMO players, he started playing D&D in the late 70’s and progressed on to videogames of the same genre such as Rogue, Temple of Apshai, Dungeon Master, and later to Everquest.

About Alachia

Alachia has been the new co-host of Warcast since Episode 90. She is the long time host of WoWcast, a podcast that focuses on the social and cultural aspects of the MMORPG world. She started out in the mmorpg world with Final Fantasy XI with a white mage Tarutaru. On Christmas of 2004, she received World of Warcraft and hasn't looked back. Her interests in WoW stem from end-game progression to exploring the community aspects of the mmo.

World Of Warcast around the ‘net

Since its inception, World Of Warcast has gotten good reviews and press.

World Of Warcast Wiki

Virgin Worlds’ WoW Podcast reviews

Zoom In’s Top 10 WoW Podcasts on the planet

World Of Warcast on Apple’s article on World Of Warcraft

World Of Warcast featured on Apple iTunes

Interview with Optimus Luminarium

Doofy’s Podcast Review: World Of Warcast

World Of Warcast in film

World Of Warcast in the film “Second Skin” (post 1)

World Of Warcast in the film “Second Skin” (post 2)