Michael-Gray
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[1.Local]: What alliances we have
Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Tomorrow's the Big Day for one of WoW.com's own. Join us in congratulating Michael Gray and his bride Katherine on their marriage. It seems that this couple has been treading on geeky ground from the very start. Now, Michael has given us permission to share excerpts from the ceremony with the gang at [1.Local] here today. We've tucked in the wedding benediction at the end of this week's column ... Best wishes to the happy couple! And now, on to the week's comment highlights.
WoW's 5th anniversary: Our writers' memories
We at WoW.com are a sentimental bunch. I always privately thought that, but now I've got the sort of ironclad proof beloved by canny blackmailers everywhere. In the weeks before WoW's 5th anniversary, a backchannel team discussion sprang up on our memories of the game and the players with whom we've had the great privilege of playing, and we decided to collect them here in honor of WoW's birthday. Some of us are hardcore gamers with lots of experience with other games. For others, WoW was their first (and in some cases, only). Most of us raid, and some of us PvP or theorycraft. A few of us are nuts for hardware arguments, but others are surprised to discover that WoW does not actually play on our toasters. Many of us are pretty easygoing in our approach to the content; others would sell their grandmothers up the river for a server-first. One among us hates warlocks, and everyone else just hates rogues (unless you're Chase). But we do share one thing in common, and that's that we love the game no matter what we're doing while playing it -- and we hope you do too. From all of us at WoW.com, happy birthday, World of Warcraft!
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon on Ustream
Your Saturday seem kind of boring? Could you maybe use a little cheering up with a side of Warcraft insight to go along with that? Then we've got just the thing: our podcast is live this afternoon, April 11, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, and as usual, right here after the break on this post. Today we'll have our good friend Turpster along for the ride, as well as WoW Insider writers Michael Gray and Chase Christian, so it'll be a nice full house.Topics of discussion will include what's been going on with all of the expansion speculation lately, the fact that WoW subscriber numbers are still on the rise, Wintergrasp and what's happening in its future, and PETA's little foray into Azeroth. Plus, we'll answer your emails as always, and since Chase is on, we'll probably talk about what life will be like for Rogues in 3.1 as well.Should be fun. We'll see you this afternoon!
The Queue: The patoot edition
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Hey, everyone! How did you all hold up over the last week? A whole week with Adam? Did you miss your ray of sunshine? No? Oh... well, that's okay. I'm back anyway! If you don't read Ask a Lore Nerd, I was more or less out of the office the last week moving into my swank new apartment, so that's why I haven't been around. It's all good now though, so Adam and I are back on our rotating schedule.We also have a cool little guest appearance from our resident Death Knight Daniel Whitcomb, so that'll be a treat! Hopefully!Cholestria asked...Are there any titles I can achieve with my level 1 bank alt? She has an outfit from the Brewfest and usually participates in any of the holiday she can, but all the titles seem to require some leveling. Is there any title she could get without leveling?
[1.Local]: Thank you, thank you
Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.In this last installment of [1.Local] for 2008, we'd like to thank a few people – you, our readers – with some of your own words. Here is a quick sampling of some of the more recent thank-you's we've received. For this [1.Local] only, we included notes that came in via e-mail and other methods, as well. We think these messages of appreciation point to good writing, good material, good reader perspectives ... a good deal all the way around.Be sure to dive into the comments area of each thread (not this one!) and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.Who's the tank?Readers thought this Moviewatch was a job well done – and its creator was surprised and flattered for the recognition. "I'd just like to give a big thank you to Michael Gray for posting my "Who's the Tank?" video on WoW Moviewatch," wrote Michael Schroeder of BroncoTV. "It's really hard to get a lot of recognition on YouTube, especially because our comedy sketches don't really fit the requirements for a good viral video (e.g., someone getting hit in the nuts). So I am ever so grateful that you gave the video such a boost. Again, thank you very much for showcasing my video and I'm really glad you enjoyed it!"
WoW Insider Show Episode 53: A dragon the size of your house
Just as it does every Saturday, our weekly podcast went live over the weekend, and the recording of the show is now up on the WoW Radio website for listening. Michael Gray joined us for the first time on the show, and Turpster was aboard for the ride as usual. We chatted about a lot of the most popular stories from the last week in Warcraft, including: Answering lots of emails -- during the show, some kind folks started up a We Love Turpster group on Facebook (and WoW Insider is on there as well), and we also tried yet again to eradicate the legendary missing show, episode 23. Downranking also got a revisit, with a look at how healers use it specifically. We talked about the pre-Wrath content patch 3.0.2, and what surprises we saw in there that we thought would be in the expansion release. Michael spoke with us about Bambi showing up in Northrend, and why people were so fascinated by this critter's story. He also talked with us about his series of interviews with high-end Arena players, and the trends he's seeing among the high level Arena play. And finally we talked a little bit about the tech of the game, including the new phasing technology, and how/if we'll see graphical updates come to the game in the future. It was a pretty packed show -- if you listened to the live feed, you know we had a little streaming problem in the beginning, but don't worry, because the recording is complete, so anything you missed then you can hear now. Additionally, if you hear anything that inspire you to write to us, please do: the email is theshow@wow.com. Additionally, you can also look us up in iTunes -- if you haven't written a review of the show there yet, please do, as we're always hungry for feedback.Enjoy the show, and we'll see you next week.
WoW Insider Show live Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern
Yes, our world famous world class worldwide podcast goes live yet again tomorrow afternoon at WoW Radio, and even though every week in this space, I usually say, "it's going to be a good one," trust me, it always is. Turpster and I will be on as usual, and we'll also welcome blogger Michael Gray from right here at WoW Insider on with us. On the plate you'll find lots of talk about Wrath and the expansion patch, including the new tech and graphics Blizzard is bringing to bear, the scariest raid boss in the game since Hogger, and all the other most popular stories from the World of Warcraft in the past week. And since Mr. Gray will be on (Turpster has to be "Mr. Pink"), we'll also chat about his work here at WI, and his popular Arena interview column.If you've got something you want us to talk about on the show, the email address is theshow@wow.com, and of course we'll be live chatting on IRC during the broadcast at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel (or if that means nothing to you, you can just click "Chat" on the WoW Radio homepage).I can guarantee you that if you listen to the show for the first time, two things will happen: 1) you will smile at least once, if not laugh outright, and 2) you will hear something about the World of Warcraft that you didn't know before. Of course, that thing you learn may be something personal about Turpster and what he thinks of Lady Vashj, but hey, we never said we were "world class."
UDE Tabards delayed until August
If you remember way back to the end of June, we told you about the new tabards available for purchase using your UDE points from the WoW Trading Card Game. At the time, Upper Deck said the new tabards would be included with patch 2.4.3. Well, 2.4.3 is here, but the tabards are sadly not. According to UDE_Patrick, the plan for releasing the tabards is now a little different. The first tabard will be available on August 1st, and each additional tabard will be added one at a time over "several months." He doesn't really specify why this change has been made, or even which tabard will be first. Some of us will obviously be disapponted (like tipster Donna, who already has ample points to pick up one for her, and one for her boyfriend). Some of us will have a little more time to pick up more points in before the release, and maybe score some of the cool loot cards from the new set.
