allakhazam
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The Horde win the pennant! The Horde win the pennant!
Yet another celebrity has confessed to being a WoW player. Curt Schilling, the pitcher whose famous game 6 stand against the Yankees in 2004 helped lead the Red Sox to their first World Series championship in eons, plays Hordeside on Malfurion. In an interview with Allakhazam, Schilling outed Wyndwraith, his 70 orc hunter, and Ngruk, his tauren shaman. He describes himself as a hardcore raider who loves questing. He plays WoW from hotel rooms when he's on the road, and he has recently struggled with the hardcore vs. casual conundrum. Schilling also talks about his own gaming companies, Everquest memories, and the (non) stigma of video games in today's world. It's always nice to see a well-known, successful person that plays WoW admit it to the public. It helps break down the stereotype that gamers are all basement-dwelling virgins. One question for Mr. Schilling -- do you still have your epic [Bloody Sock]? [Thanks for the tip, Calaf!]
Allakhazam EQ2 moves to wikibase format
In a surprising, though not wholly unwelcome move, Allakhazam has moved their EverQuest II site to what they call a "Wikibase" format, a hybrid of a database and wiki that takes the searchability and depth of their prior database format, and streamlines the submission process to allow for a more fluid inclusion of player feedback and information. In the past, players had to submit items and descriptions for the database via email. The new wikibase format approaches it in a more interactive, web 2.0 way. From the horse's mouth:As a new feature at Allakhazam's, there is much work to be done here. Our goal is nothing short of total integration of the traditional database you have grown to love and depend on, with the wiki providing total access to quest descriptions, mob notes, and other helpful information.In our humble opinion, this puts Allakhazam miles above competition like MMO DB, which continues to rely on the database model. They've now got a wikibase for FFXI and EQ2, how much longer before we see it spread to some of the heavyweights like WoW or LotRO?
WoW Firefox search plugins
How many times a day do we all search Thottbot, Allakhazam, WoWWiki, Wowhead and others? It gets old really fast to type in the address or go dig it out of bookmarks every time right? About 50 of you are right now thinking, "geez ya noob, like thottbot is my homepage!" Before you get all huffy and start chargin' your fireball, realize that there is a better way to look-up those [ACME Pauldrons of the Whale]. Think of them as WoW UI add-ons for Firefox. What? That's right, IRL WoW add-ons for your Firefox browser. Check out these search plug-ins that you may get some use out of if you look up things like a banshee. By the way, I've heard that Lady Sylvanas can Google stuff like nobody's business, but that is unconfirmed as of this writing.Firefox search plug-ins for WoW-WoW Armory (both US and EU versions)-Allakhazam Quests-Allakhazam Items-Allakhazam Mobs-Curse gaming add-ons-WoW Official forums-WoWWiki-Wowhead-WowdirectoryThe links to all of these search engines are at Mozilla's "mycroft" website, which lets users build their own search plug-ins for their favorite sites. For any of the search plug-ins, simply click the name of the site you wish to install, and Firefox does the rest. Our very own search plug-inAlso, I am proud to introduce the official WoW Insider Firefox search plugin that you can now download for your WoW Insider perusing pleasure (without having to type the address or leave your browser). Please use this plug-in responsibly, no members of the Burning Legion are allowed to use this search. Enjoy
Analysing the $1mil acquistion of WoW database site
Last week, World of Warcraft database site Wowhead sold for reportedly a whopping US$1 million to Affinity Media. Our sister site WoW Insider takes a look back on the deal and its implications to the community.First comes the fear of goldfarming influence. When the news first broke, there was talk of Affinity's relation to goldfarming company IGE. All ties have purportedly been cut by Affinity, clinching the deal for Wowhead. To be sure, no goldfarming or power-leveling ads have been shown on the database site. Affinity CEO Mark Jaffei claimed in a Q&A that the original leaker of the acquisition talked up goldfarming has financial interest in a competitive site.More importantly comes the fear of non-competition, as the three biggest WoW databases -- Wowhead, Thottbot and Allakhazam -- are now all owned by the same company. The battle for traffic hits had pushed the sites to improve the quality of their databases, and there is worry that Affinity will not require competition the three sites. Only time will tell if those fears prove valid. Check out WoW Insider for a thorough analysis of the news.
Get Profiled and Show Yourself Off
You've done all that work to get your gear, and now you've got to show it off, right? Get a forum signature that shows you're a real hardcore player-- get a player profile. Here's three sites that let you do it for free. CTProfiles.net is from the makers of CTmod, and they have a pretty nice interface that will let you put any gear you want in there. They even let you put in different gear profiles for the same character (to show off your fire resist or PVP set, assuming it differs from the stuff you wear all the time). Their interface is good, but none of it is automatic-- you'll have to choose your gear piece by piece as you put it in. Allakhazam has a very nice profile listing over on their site that's much more automated-- you create an account, and then install a mod called WoWReader that pulls all of your info out of the game for you. It'll even let you connect up to your guild and server, and they'll calculate all your crit percentages for you from your gear and stats. The only problem is that, like CTprofiles, there's no way to show your PVP rank at all, which means if you want to do that you'll have to go to... WoW Guru, which has the most complicated profile format out of these three. After you install their addon, they'll show off everything from your Lifetime HKs to your "Expected Peak Rank" (based on your honor rate), and even a little graph that charts your progress so far. Unfortunately, players are commenting that WoW Guru can be kind of buggy (not surprising, considering everything they're pulling together), but they definitely offer the most detailed profile we've ever seen. Any experience using these? Or do you know of a great profile creator you can recommend?Update: A few people are also praising RPG Outfitter in the comments, so that's an option, too.
