The best of WoW.com: March 2009
While looking over March 2009, one of the things that immediately jumps at me is that this month had a lot of great news on PvP. My guess? With Tier 7 content growing increasingly stale and Ulduar encounters being doled out sparingly on the PTR, lots of players started to dip their toes back into arena and battlegrounds, and promptly got them chopped off by the howling pack of death knights infesting BG's like a Biblical plague.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Disembodied skull confirms new battleground, your grim future: Sacco's personal favorite of the year, and the first solid news we had of the upcoming Isle of Conquest.
Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, Wrath, and crushing blows: I was grimly expecting to get crucified by commenters for this piece. I was definitely not expecting it to get the reaction it did or a visit from Ghostcrawler.
All the World's a Stage: Impromptu RP raiding: Rossi acquires walking stick, goes on rampage around Orgrimmar. Next day; Rossi acquires bouquet of daisies, goes on rampage around Orgrimmar.
Why now's the best time to run BC content: Bored with Tier 7? Tier 6 is on notice.
The Southern Graveyard is a trap: Zach channels Admiral Ackbar.
Yogg-Saron, Old God of Death: More information on Ulduar's bosses was starting to trickle in off the PTR, and the big baddie was revealed to be an Old God. Great lore piece by Alex with (as it turns out) accurate speculation on the relationship between Yogg-Saron and the Scourge.
That woman is a man, man: Is everyone's favorite time-traveler a woman? A man? Cross-dresser? Transsexual? Or is Chromie simply confused? The world may never know.
Is Wrath too easy, or are we just better?: Excellent question from Gray -- when the player base has access to more, faster, and higher-quality information than ever before, is the game just going to get "easier" by default?
Did resilience fail in Wrath?: Zach's observation -- "Resilience didn't exactly fail in Wrath. It just didn't get to players on time." And on that note --
The evolutionary design of arena gear: We gave a stamp of approval to Blizzard's decision to advance the current look of PvP gear rather than changing to entirely different (and clashing) sets.
Arcane Brilliance: Q to the power of Q: "Spirit will now make your whites whiter, and eliminate static cling."
25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear: Eliah's article spurred a lot of back-channel discussion among the staffers here, and I went on to write a counterpoint in April. Whether you agreed with his premise or not, it was a great piece asking a valid question on why 10-mans get screwed out of some of the game's more special touches. The situation was in no way helped by 10-man achievements being generally tougher than their 25-man counterparts in Tier 7.
What to do when a player dies: Thoughtful piece from Schramm about a growing problem in the digital age.
Victory from the jaws of defeat: Possibly the most amazing PvP comeback of all time. At 3:45 the commenters have all but called the match in favor of SK Gaming, but NaeHyun Kang (a.k.a OrangeMarmalade) apparently didn't hear them.
OrangeMarmalade's 1vs2 comeback explained: And this shows how he pulled it off.
Team Fortress 2 meets World of Warcraft: For all those of you out there who really like CIrcle of Blood. Sudden, frightening thought; how would TF2 classes fare against their WoW counterparts? Heavies versus warriors? Spies versus rogues?
Officers' Quarters: Time for another rant: Scott Andrews asks the non-officers among us to stop and think a little harder about what our guild officers have to do to keep a competent and consistent raid running.
65% fewer Arena teams in Season 5: The observation that Blizzard invests so much time in arena with increasingly fewer players even setting foot inside is particularly cogent. Raiding was once in that place.
Blizzard rolls out new Battle.net accounts: In March, they were optional. They wouldn't stay that way for long.
2009's drawing to a close, and we're wrapping up the most interesting articles we've published all year, one day at a time. Join us every day for the next twelve days with this year's best of WoW.com!
