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WordPress iOS editing app gets styling buttons, full-screen mode
It's only fair and right that one of the world's most popular content management/blogging platforms should have a snazzy and capable iPhone app to go with it. The WordPress app has been updated to version 2.9, adding three new features for mobile users. The new version adds handy styling buttons right above the keyboard, so you no longer have to put in your markup manually for bold or italic text, links or lists. Full-screen editing gives you more real estate to view what you're working on, especially handy on the iPhone's screen. You can also now follow other subscribed Wordpress.com blogs directly in the app. WordPress for iOS is free on the App Store.
Windows Phone Starter Kit for Wordpress hopes to lure developers, beef up marketplace offerings
There's nothing worse than that "womp womp" moment for Windows Phone users when they find out a favorite website doesn't have an optimized mobile app. Seriously. It's proven. Now, however, Wordpress aficionados can spread the love with the Windows Phone Starter Kit -- a package that promises quick and easy development for Microsoft's mobile marketplace. With the included skeleton code, admins only need to replace one line, insert the blog URL and tweak some settings in the CMS until presto -- the app's finito. Like other Wordpress dev kits, this one allows users to view posts and moderate comments. Hopefully, the promise of a super simple platform will be enough to entice developers to sit at Ballmer's table and fatten up the app store, particularly with Mango positioned as the next course.
Google releases an official Blogger iPhone app
A few days after the entire service had a redesign, Blogger now has something users have been waiting for for a while: an official iPhone app. Google has released the Blogger app to the App Store, and it's now available for download. The app allows you to do everything you'd expect with the Blogger service, including save, edit, and publish posts, as well as uploading pictures and adding location information. It appears you can't edit any of your templates or HTML, or even manage comments from the app, so this isn't a full-service setup, just a way to quickly post from the road on your blog. There's no iPad version, either, though there are quite a few iPad apps out there that do support posting to Blogger directly. Having an official app like this will probably be enough for a lot of people, especially for a relatively simple CMS like Blogger. The Blogger app is of course available for free.
PAX East 2010: Community manager panel
Community managers are the very definition of a paradox. They're some of the most public faces of the game, yet their role is often least understood. They serve many masters -- developers, players, marketing, press -- and are beholden to all of them at once. They're often on the blunt end of unrestrained love and unfathomable anger. No matter what they are, one thing is for sure: their job rocks. At least, according to a CM panel at PAX East entitled "Community Managers: More than Forum Monkeys." In it, five CMs from various studios shared just what goes on with their job, what limits they deal with, and what are the highs and lows of working in the public limelight 24/7. Meghan Rodberg (Turbine), Aaron Trites (Harmonix), Morgan Romine (Frag Dolls), Jess Folsom (Bioware Austin) and Linda Carlson (Sony Online Entertainment) spent a candid hour with an audience pulling back some of the mystique and misconceptions of their positions as supposed monkey tamers. Hit the jump to read about the inner workings of these fabulous five community managers.
Squarespace hosting/CMS service launches iPhone app
After a long wait, Squarespace customers finally have an iPhone app of their own. Squarespace is a hosted blogging/CMS service that competes with the likes of WordPress.com and Typepad. Having used all three, I can say that interacting with Squarespace (posting, changing your site's look and feel, etc.) is unlike the others. Instead of a separate control panel/dashboard, Squarespace previews changes in real time on the same screen. It's really nice. The iPhone app [iTunes link] seems to be an extension of its browser-based sibling. For example, check out the live preview mode pictured at right. You can also manage multiple accounts, post, upload multiple images at once (awesome) view stats and more. The UI looks nice as well. While bloggers on other platforms have had compatible apps in the App Store for a while now, this is Squarespace's first solution. We're eager to play around with it. Squarespace for iPhone is free and requires a paid Squarespace account.
Engadget is looking for a lead designer / developer!
You guys may not know this, but we have some really, really cool stuff coming up in the world of Engadget -- and not just on the editorial front. In fact, we're currently looking for a salaried, full-time designer with backend / developer chops to join us in the creation and maintenance of said cool stuff. If you're an incredibly smart, talented, hard-working human that loves Engadget, happens to have killer design sense, and knows their way around a screen full of code -- we'd like to speak to you. Keep in mind that we'll only be looking at candidates with a portfolio, and we're going to be seriously scrutinizing the work that we see. Read on for a list of our requirements.
Forum Post of the Day: Zarhym faces the flames
I was wondering when/if things would get a little hot and heavy for the new CM Zarhym on the forums, and this thread is it -- players start out asking for a date for the expansion (we all know when Wrath will come out already: "when it's done"), and when Zarhym orders up a generic answer, players start to test his limits. One snarky answer gets him to deal out a ban, and it's downhill from there -- when players start fighting with him over the fact that they want a new battleground, he gets a little snippy, and eventually, he says that putting in a new battleground would only satisfy a "small percentage" of the playerbase. And then players really get angry.I think Zarhym handled himself pretty well -- his little snipe at players for thinking an expansion was "too soon" last year was uncalled for, especially since Blizzard told us they were actually aiming for one every year. But he's not distraught to the point of a Tseric yet, obviously. He's just not quite as smooth as, say, Drysc or Neth yet in quelling angry players.It's too bad that, since the CMs are anonymous, we have no idea when they start of their qualifications or past experience (though of course we'd trust Blizzard to hire people who know what they're doing). But Zarhym got his official welcome to the forums -- when players start flaming you for saying the wrong thing, you know you've made it.
Zarhym floats, posts, and toasts
Forum regulars were treated to a new Community Manager over the weekend in the form of Zarhym. We don't always cover every appearance of a new blue, but when we do, it's usually interesting. What's noteworthy about Zarhym's appearance is that he has an unusually cool avatar, and a few folks have already begun speculating about it. Zarhym hasn't posted a lot yet, but he's starting to show some personality. He's passed out some Kool Aid toasts, but is sticking to the not-quite-canned language about class balancing and ongoing development that we've come to expect from CMs. We also know his first levelling experience to level 40 was a Gnome. I haven't seen any of the existing CMs disappear, though. My guess is this staffing expansion is related to the upcoming game expansion you might have heard about. Not only are there more players coming around to WoW, but those players are going to be busy posting questions, analysis, and complaints. Zarhym will probably help the team address all that, without lessening their existing service. Good luck, mate!
Alex's TTR stress test review
Yesterday's TTR Stress Test had its up and it had its downs, but overall it was a very fun experience. It was rocky in the beginning, with the server needing to be pulled down for a hardware upgrade shortly after the test was scheduled to begin. The TTR was riddled with soul-searing, unplayable lag up until that point, so I'd say it was needed.The WoW Insider gang sat around for an hour doing a load of nothing until the server came back, but it was worth it. Most of the lag was gone, the Blizzard Entertainment crew were out and about doing their thing, and we were finally able to hit the arena. Unfortunately, our first match was against a three Resto Druid team. In a magical fairy world where Druids don't have Innervate or any natural mana regen whatsoever, I'm pretty sure Adam would have still gone OOM trying to Mana Burn all three of them to nothing.Interested in the good times we had? Hop on past the cut and I'll give you the details! %Gallery-18020%
Worldwide Arena Battle announced for Sunday on the TTR
Blizzard Poster Tyren has announced that this coming Sunday, 12pm to 3pm, Blizzard will be holding a Worldwide Arena Battle on the Tournament Test Realm in order to focus testing on the server. Members of the community and development teams will be queuing up to fight, so if you've always wanted to show Kalgan or Tigole what for in the Arena, this looks like your chance. You can expect a battle between the various CMs as well, so we'll have to watch to see who gets stickied and who gets banned. If you're not sure how to access the TTR, you can read Zach Yonzon's guide here on the site. Don't worry if you don't have a character transfer slot left, every character created on the TTR is automatically level 70, and will spawn next to a selection of vendors that will let them buy a wide variety of gear to outfit themselves for battle. Assuming the TTR doesn't collapse under the stress, we'll see you there!
WoW Insider Show live on the virtual air tomorrow afternoon
A brand new episode of our podcast, the WoW Insider Show, will be recorded live tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm on WoW Radio, and I can tell you right now that we'll be talking about Warlocks. The news about Lifetap changes topped the charts on WoW Insider this week, so myself, Duncor (Turpster is away this week, so the D is kindly stepping in), and John "BigBearButt" Petricelli (along with probably one more person from WoW Insider) will definitely be chatting about the most demonic class in the game.But that's not all -- other topics of discussion will include what classes the CMs play, the worst quests in the game, and we'll also be asking the same question Nihilum did: are raiders becoming obsolete? Plus, we'll have reader mail (you can send it in right now at theshow@wow.com), and we'll welcome anyone and everyone on the IRC channel (#wowradio on irc.mmoirc.com). It's all tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm EST -- see you then!
How many 70s does Eyonix have?
Surprisingly, US CM Eyonix has dropped in on a thread titled "How many 70s do you have?" I'm surprised because I wouldn't think it would necessarily be in a CM's best interest for people to know what classes they play, as a common perception in the community is that if you don't have a level 70 <insert class here> you obviously know nothing about the class and should stop talking. Anyway, here's the four classes that the whelpling has gotten to the level cap (in the order he put them in): Shaman Priest Druid Paladin
Tharfor, his mouth, his foot, and shamans
Man-- as if Blizzard really needed something like this to happen. Shamans are already unhappy with patch 2.4, and in replying to a relatively well-written and well-founded thread on why that is, EU CM Tharfor drops this bomb:The stats don't show a lack of popularity for shaman, they just show a ridiculous popularity for other classes.I am taking that out of context a bit-- Tharfor is basically saying that Shamans are in the right place, and it's other classes that need to be balanced on to them (and Thundgot later wants it clarified as "certain" other classes-- Druids and Warriors specifically). But as if the Shaman forums weren't enough of a firestorm, that statement has set off a whole other explosion of complaints. People are even asking if a statement like that is supposed to reflect Blizzard's feelings as a company or just Tharfor's as a CM.I feel for Tharfor-- at least he wrote a lot on the subject, and at least he stepped up to talk to shamans about this, even when I'm sure the other CMs were tired of banning people after dot-shock. But this Shaman issue isn't a problem that can be talked out on the forums-- serious changes need to be made in game. From the missing Shaman review before BC all the way up to the new Stormstrike icon in 2.4, Blizzard has done very little to cure the basic problems with the shaman class (totem length and mobility, and mana management), and posting statements like the one above isn't helping.
Predicting patch 2.4
So it's time for WoW Insider to do you all a favor. It seems like whenever we attempt to predict the timing of a certain patch, Blizzard ignores whatever we say, and drops it right away. With patch 2.2, we predicted in early September that it would take "weeks" longer, maybe even last November, and instead they had it out within the month. And with patch 2.3, we guessed that Blizzard wouldn't drop it before Thanksgiving, and just hours later they proved us wrong, and released it before the holiday.So here you go: with everything we've seen on the forums lately, including the CMs a little giddy with excitement, and all of the news that dropped last week, we're going to officially predict that patch 2.4 will drop on the PTRs this coming Tuesday, and that it will hit the live realms sometime in early March (probably before Noblegarden, which starts on March 23rd).There. Now, Blizzard has plenty of chances to prove us wrong by releasing the PTR sometime this week, and getting the patch out to live realms before March 1st. That's our favor to you-- if Blizzard follows their past pattern, they'll make us completely wrong again, and get you on the PTR and in the patch even sooner than we thought.
On CMs and their thread choices
Unholycow on Thrall finally calls out the CMs (in a more literate-than-usual way, I mean) for something they've been doing a long time on the forums-- posting in inconsequential threads, while big player questions remain unanswered. As he says, "what's going on?"Neth answers pretty quickly, and this issue goes almost directly back to the issue of communication between players and CMs. The CMs feel they have a lot more freedom to post on silly threads, obviously, and so they do it more. But when talking about "serious" issues (or maybe just more touchy subjects), their words carry more weight, and so they have to pick and choose what they say.And to that, I have to agree with Tolki, who posts in the thread that we'd rather have an Oprah than a Tony Snow. Sure, things didn't work out so well the last time a CM was completely honest with us, but surely there's a middle ground. BlizzCast is a start-- maybe the devs and CMs should work together to make sure that fairly often (once a week or even once a day), they can speak out on a "serious" issue, and give the player base something to chew on. It could be argued that the CMs' words carry so much weight on serious issues because we almost never hear from them, and if that's true, a regular schedule of discussions with either CMs or devs would help give the CMs more freedom to be more honest with us about what they think about (hey heeeeyy) what's really going on in game.
What Blizzard can learn from the Ghost Wolf debacle
Make no mistake about it-- Blizzard screwed up the issue of ghost wolf taming. A few months ago, when patch 2.3 was introduced with the new Dustwallow content, players found that by quickening Hunters' spellcast time, they were able to tame an animal that was never meant to be tamed-- the ghost wolves summoned by Grimtotem shamans there. Players thought it was awesome, and so did we. And despite the expectation that Blizzard would fix the problem and ruin our fun, we were surprised to hear that even though Blizzard admitted the taming was not intended, they would let it go. Those who wanted to put in the extra effort and cost to get a neat pet model would get one.Cut to earlier this week, when Drysc posted exactly the opposite on the forums.This isn't the first time Blizzard has flipped on players, and odds are that it won't be the last. They screwed this up, and players deserve to either keep having the ability to go out of their way to tame these wolves, or get a good reason why they shouldn't be able to.
Forum Post of the Day: Snow mans weekly
What happened to Drysc over the weekend? The man went snow crazy-- not only did all of the forum posters on the official WoW forums turn into candy canes yet again for the holidays, but the CMs also got turned into snowmen, and Drysc peppered the forums with a brand now "lol wut"-level catchphrase: "snow mans." There's snow rhyme or reason to it!Still, as forum memes go, I laughed. Detaer from Daggerspine wrapped up all the "snow mans" into one big wrapup (which Drysc then added a "snow mans" to for an infinite snowy loop). The holidays are here again, and while a few forum posters were guessing that Drysc might have been hacked, it's much more likely that our CMs are drinking way too much egg nog. When will the frozen ice-inspired craziness end? There's just snow way to know.
Forum Post of the Day: Ode to the CMs
I have to say that I really enjoyed this little ditty Tatiana wrote up over on the forums. She's seen all the trouble the CMs are contending with lately, feels a little sad for our Community Managers, and decided to write a song for them. I don't want to turn this into yet another discussion about Shaman buffs (we've got other posts for that), but no matter how you feel about the CMs, you just have to be won over by lines like "You tease us with "When it's ready" and even with "Soon." / And you get flaming pumpkins as your forum toon."Hopefully some musician more qualified than I (I've got my trusty Uke right here, but unfortunately my mic isn't quite good enough to give this thing justice on a recording) will toss in a catchy chorus and set this to music. I imagine something a little Arlo Guthrie-- how else could you pull off the song's best joke: "In excitement I click on the Blue post, / To see if it's "Soon," or "!!!" or " If you have any complaints or feedback regarding a Community Manager, please email wowcmfeedback@blizzard.com. Thanks!" Funny. And if someone does put it together, drop us an email about it-- we'll be sure to play it on the podcast.The whole thing is reprinted for posterity after the break.
The Blizzard staff goes to the movies
So very funny. Take a few parts Blizzplanet Blizzard staff pictures page, and combine with a JibJab Flash app that lets you put your own pictures in, and you've got the makings of greatness seen above: Blizzard CM Drysc, starring in his own action movie as a rogue cop short on sanity and long on ammo, complete with cameo appearances by Nethaera, Feathers, Mike Morhaime (he's the boss, naturally), Metzen, Eyonix, and all the other Blizzard faces.Oh and there's more-- here's Neth and Drysc on the dance floor, a preview of what we'll see at the next BlizzCon, and Eyonix and Drysc... well, you might not want to watch that last one.Ivenoml of Hellscream put these all together, and salute to you, sir or madam, because these are darn funny. For their part, the Blizzard staff enjoyed them, too-- we're told by Eyonix that they're being passed around the company as we speak. So, so funny. Now we definitely need an item in WotLK called Unnecessary Force.[ via incgamers ]
Strange patch note choices (or, my last Orc shoulders post ever, I swear)
I can confirm for you that yes, patch 2.2 has finally fixed our Orc male shoulders. Finally, my Orc Shaman can hold his shoulders up proudly (ok, well, a little hunched down under all the weight, but still). I know lots of you readers are tired of hearing about it, but the saga is over: our Orc shoulders have grown back. Now I'll never mention it again.Strangely enough, however, this change didn't make the patch notes, and when players ask why, Neth sounds a little tired of talking about it herself. She says that while the change did not appear in the official 2.2 notes, "one graphical item of which has been stated as being fixed many times now, does not make it less accurate." I've wondered before who exactly writes the patch notes, and yet again I find myself wondering what the method is behind their madness. Some patch changes, including some boss tweaks, are clearly not included on purpose. Some huge changes (like the DOTs affected by resilience change) get the smallest of mentions. And some small changes very much awaited by players, like the anti-AFK measures, get quite a bit of ink.Now, I doubt that Blizzard purposely left the Orc shoulders change off the patch notes-- they probably just didn't think it important enough to include. But surely there are things that they do leave off of the notes on purpose, and some things that the devs might not think are big, but that whoever writes the patch notes chooses to emphasize. Whatever their method behind the madness, I can't see what it is at all.
