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Blizzard announces 'premium' Auction House functionality for WoW Armory app
There's a surprisingly large sect of characters in World of Warcraft who live their entire lives without ever stepping foot outside of their race's capitol city. To some, the MMO's in-game auction house presents a more compelling gameplay option than the usual dungeon raiding and level grinding -- it allows players to become wildly wealthy with shrewd business practices. According to an announcement made by Blizzard earlier today, these players will be able to manage their auctions on-the-go using the Armory app on iPhone and iPod Touch. Little is known about how much control the app will give players over their in-game assets, however, references to the service being "premium-based" have led to conjecture that the functionality will cost a few coins. Real-life coins, that is. You spend the real-life coins for the thing that lets you make the fake-life coins. This is going to get confusing. [Via WoW.com]
Blizzard announces upcoming premium AH through Armory feature
It's fairly common knowledge that Blizzard has kept updating the Armory with new features and new apps. Now, Bornakk comes forth with news of an app that will be to the armory what a giant Steve Allen pog was to pogs: behold, the ultimate feature! In the glorious future, we'll be able to work our auctions from the Armory itself or apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. Yes, one more step closer to actually living full time in Azeroth. I have my eyes on a nice cottage outside of Elwynn, myself. In all seriousness, I know a lot of people who would probably club me over the head and hand me over to a cabal of secretive necromancers for this feature. No news yet on exactly how it's going to work, and Bornakk does point out that with the amount of work it will be to develop, you're probably going to have to pay extra for it. This is a fairly complex service to develop, due in large part to its unprecedented integration with the game, so we don't have an exact release date yet. It's important to note here that certain elements of the service will be premium-based, which we'll go into more detail on once the service functionality is finalized. As with all of the services we offer, we plan to integrate the Auction House and Armory in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience, and we won't release it until it meets the quality standards that we've set for our other features and services.See the rest of the announcement after the break.
Blizzard launches Facebook Armory app
Earlier this evening we received a tip (thanks, Taylor) that Blizzard has launched a WoW Armory Facebook application. It promises to publish data about your WoW characters to all your Facebook buddies in real time. I figured I'd give it a spin, not so much because I want to spam my friends with it as because I'm curious what they've come up with. You can see the results in the gallery below. Here are my brief impressions: It's a bit scary that it asks you to log in with your Battle.net account, but if you look at the URL of the popup window it is in fact from us.battle.net, one of the legitimate domains. Still, I'm not sure it's good training for users for Blizzard to ask us to log in within random popups. The login form does not ask for your authenticator. It doesn't tell you this in the brief description, but you choose up to five characters for the app to report to your followers. It doesn't just indiscriminately report the progress of your latest bank alt. By default, it publishes updates on your characters to your Facebook feed, but that box is easily unchecked (fortunately). It also by default posts to your feed that you've installed the app, which is something I can't forgive a Facebook (or Twitter) developer for. If I really want to tell all my friends I'm using your app, I'll tell them. Don't do it for me. At least this too is an option that can be unchecked. After choosing your characters and what you want to show, you may be worried that it's not working, but just give it a minute - it doesn't populate immediately. Mine started showing data in about ten minutes. Overall, assuming they manage to make it work, if you want your Facebook friends to know about your WoW characters, this is the app for you. If not, why are you still reading this post? Anyway, I'm glad to see Blizzard following through on some of the promise the Armory has always showed, even if I don't approve of all their methods. Innovation is always welcome. %Gallery-84420%
Anti-Aliased: I've got nothing to hide
So, it's late night on Wednesday night, I just got done watching Top Gear, and I need something to write about. Lucky for me that Blizzard has given me the perfect topic -- MMO privacy. Thanks to a new development in their World of Warcraft Armory program, privacy advocates are up in arms and I've got a topic to discuss. For all those of you who may be late to the game, Blizzard is adding RSS feeds to the Armory. Basically, the Armory will now report on the exact time you do an "Armory worthy" activity, such as boss kills, achievements, item pickups, and more. People can subscribe to your RSS feed, so then they know exactly when you do something in World of Warcraft. This has, of course, sent privacy advocates into a tailspin of anger. There's no opt-out button for the Armory, so your playing style in World of Warcraft is going to be exposed whether you like it or not. The topic has even spawned a 59+ page thread on the European forums! So what's my take on it? Well, I'm glad you asked. Here at Anti-Aliased, I've got nothing to hide.
The best of WoW.com: January 14th-20th
This week on WoW.com saw World of Warcraft in the news yet again, when a man from Clearwater, Florida was arrested for fraud after he sold his WoW account and failed to hand over the goods. On the gameplay side of things, Lead Systems Designer Greg Street and Lead Producer J. Allen Brack hit Twitter to answer numerous questions about patch 3.3, Icecrown Citadel, and the upcoming expansion, Cataclysm. For all of this and much more, keep reading to see the best of WoW.com from the last week.
Pimp My Profile: Shippleton, beast mastery hunter
Welcome to Pimp My Profile, the column in which the WoW.com staff turns zeroes into heroes. Don't think you're performing where you should be? Not sure how your class/spec is supposed to be gearing up? E-mail us with your Armory link, and you might be next to receive our help! Hi, I'm 80 and I've been so for weeks. I've been running random heroics for gear and I followed your guides for my pet specs (though I think I messed up on my Tenacity). My DPS barely cracks 1000. As far as I know, as a hunter, there is almost no excuse for this. Please help me. -Shippleton Thanks for writing in, Shippleton. You are wise enough to understand that your DPS is lower than it should be and intelligent enough to ask questions. It seems likely that you are also uncommonly good-looking, a trait shared by most hunters. You are to be applauded for taking the first step down the road to becoming a death dealer, which is the right of every hunter! Right off the bat 1k DPS seems sufficiently low that I suspect we should be taking a look at your shot rotation as well as your talents and gear. In the interest of science I went ahead and ran Utgarde Pinnacle heroic with some extremely understanding friends while I was completely naked except for my gun, shirt, and tabard. My lack of mana kept me in viper for about 50% of the fights, and I ended up at about 1,100 DPS for the run. So that gives us an absolute bottom DPS benchmark.
Breakfast topic: What will you set your armory pose as?
I am having way too much fun with the new armory features. My favorite part? Getting to set the pose my character takes when players start looking me up. There are so many to choose from. There are the dance poses, the wave, the bow, the salute and so forth. I figure the top left one demonstrates my athletic ability. We dwarves are known for our jumping prowess after all! I suppose I could just moon the viewer with the top right one. That wouldn't be appropriate though, would it? Ah ha! What about the thoughtful dwarf in the bottom left? He's stroking his beard while thinking about a potentially life changing decision such as chocolate chip or oatmeal. I suppose the classic option would be to go for the traditional wave in the bottom right. Yeah, I suppose that will do. What about you? What are you setting your armory pose as?
Beware of WoW Armory phishing scams [Updated]
First things first: the correct address for the WoW Armory is wowarmory.com. Bookmark it. Memorize it. But don't ever, ever search for it again. We've talked before about how misspelling searches can get you into trouble. But even if you spell WoW Armory correctly when Googling, the first sponsored site that shows up is a phishing site -- and it's a really good one. Update 1:10pm: Google seems to have removed the site from their sponsored listing in the short time since I wrote this post. Kudos! Nonetheless, there are and will be more sites using the same technique, so the warning remains valid. Do not go to the following site: armory-worldofwarcnaft.com/wowarmory/, it is evil. Notice the n in warcnaft? You may not when you are clicking on it in your search page or when it shows up in your address bar. And that's what they are counting on. Because the rest of the site looks authentic. When you type in what you want to search for, you get asked for your Battle.net info. Then, no matter what you type in, it gives you a password error. (I typed in profanity. It was fun.) They have stolen all of the elements of the actual Blizzard pages, so that if you want your login page in other languages, just a click of the button will get you there. But don't. It's evil.
The Queue: Not quite mutual destruction
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I want to kick off this edition of The Queue by thanking you guys for submitting your armories to the reboot of Pimp My Profile. Our first edition will be hitting this upcoming Wednesday. In an ideal world, we'll have one for you every single Wednesday after that. On to the Q&A! RogueJedi86 asked... "Why were the Dragonflight Aspects created/assigned if they can be killed with no repercussions whatsoever? Killing Malygos didn't do so much as give Mages a nosebleed, despite being the Custodian of Magic. And I doubt killing Deathwing will do anything to the earth either."
Armory gets updated with a model viewer
The World of Warcraft armory page has just been updated with new features and tools! As stated on their updates page: Every character profile now has a 3D model viewer that displays the character in his or her currently equipped gear, and accurately displays the character's physical features, hairstyle, and helm/cloak display as they appear in-game. Mousing over the character model window brings up a control panel with the following controls Camera controls: To rotate the camera around a character, click and hold the left mouse button while moving the mouse left and right, or click the arrow buttons in the top left of the window. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel while hovering over the character window, or click the zoom buttons in the top left of the window. To move the character within the frame, right-click and drag the character in the window (or on the small square in the bottom left corner of the window). Animations: Each character has a selection of animations that they can perform. Use the arrows next to the animation's name to cycle through them. The available animations are determined by the character's class and currently equipped weapons. Capture pose: If you are logged in, you can set the default pose of any character on your account. Use the camera and animation controls to create a pose, then click the save icon to set it as the default. All visitors to the character's profile will then see the character in that pose. Play controls: The rewind, pause, and fast forward buttons allow you to fine-tune a pose for a character. Fullscreen mode: You can view the character in a fullscreen display against a selection of backgrounds. All controls will continue to function in fullscreen mode. Embed: You can embed a standalone, interactive version of the character's model viewer in a compatible website, such as a social networking site, guild website, or forum. Options: Extra options include selecting a background in fullscreen mode and toggling the display of a character's helm, cloak, or tabard. That's freakin' cool! I like the ability to embed the model viewer and the ability to stick a preset pose for people looking up your character is a plus.
Updated Armory app features Find an Upgrade, saved talent builds
A few readers (thanks!) sent us notes pointing out that Blizzard has updated the Mobile Armory app for the iPhone. The new version, 1.1.0, features a streamlined character selection screen, the ability to save and load custom talent builds (though unfortunately it doesn't look like there's any way to bring these into the game automatically -- you just have to choose points the same way), in-game reputations on character profiles, and a number of other bugfixes and user interface improvements. The one big feature is that "Find an Upgrade" now works on the mobile app -- you can search directly in the app for a gear upgrade for any equipment slot on your character. That's a nice bonus; it means that while you're sitting on the bus with your iPhone, you can look through your gear, and figure out what you're going to be upgrading to in that waist slot the next time your guild heads up into Icecrown. I'd still like to see a little more integration with the game itself (a few MMO companies have hinted that they're pushing for more integrated iPhone tie-ins), but since the app is called Mobile Armory, and yes, is still free, I can't complain too much.
Champions Online announces iPhone app: Champions Companion
It seems like these past two days have been "everyone gets an iPhone app" days. Developers, we love you, but did you all have to release your apps at the same time? Anyway, back to the original point, Champions Online is on your iPhone. Thanks to the Champions Companion app, you can take CO wherever you go. Much more than a simple "armory" application that lets you look at your character's stats and show your hero off to friends, the Companion lets you view the in-game news, view your friends list and friend activity streams, and even send and receive in-game e-mails. Companion is free for all account holders, so jump over to the iTunes store and grab yourself the app today. So, next time you're out at the mall and your best friend logs into Champions, you can shoot them an e-mail while you're sitting in front of the Express and waiting for your girlfriend. Be super, wherever you go.
Armory updates with model viewer, character and calendar feeds
Blizzard has added some nice new features to the World of Warcraft Armory, including a few players have been asking for in the past. The most exciting change is something that doesn't seem to be working quite correctly yet -- they're including a Flash-based model viewer for characters that will let you see what a toon looks like without ever logging into the game. So says their updates page, but as of this writing, the whole system is going up and down, and we couldn't get it to work correctly on any of our PCs. Should be done soon, though. Other updates include character activity feeds -- there are now RSS buttons all over your profile that will let you track achievements, items, and other specific character information via RSS. And Blizzard has also built in calendar feeds that will let you output guild and player calendars to Outlook, Google Calendar, or other calendar applications. That means your out-of-game calendars will update automatically if your raidleader happens to change up the raiding schedule. And finally, character profiles have been redesigned and streamlined -- they look a little different with all of these new features. The date on all of these changes actually says January 1, 2010, so Blizzard may have implemented them a little early, but sooner or later we'll see these welcome changes all active on the Armory. Thanks to everyone who sent this in! Update: The Armory is offline for maintenance now. These changes were seen in action, so they're real, but as we say above, they're officially dated for January 1st. So they may not be in effect just yet.
Phat Loot Phriday: Sharpened Obsidian Edged Blade
Taveena recommended this one in last week's comments, so here you go. A big, bad sword. Name: Sharpened Obsidian Edged Blade (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Two-hand sword Damage/Speed: 715 - 1074 / 3.50 (255.6 DPS) Attributes: +146 Strength, +179 Stamina Improves critical strike rating by 69 and expertise by 103 %Gallery-33600%
Taiwanese player earns all of the achievements
Yes, that's right, all of them. You've probably heard about this already (we're a little late to the party, just because it seemed a little fishy to us at first), but a player in Taiwan has an Armory profile that claims he (or she, though the character is a male tauren druid) has achieved all 986 achievements available in the current version of World of Warcraft. That's everything, from Loremaster, to all the ToGC Tributes, to the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday rewards, even Insane in the Membrane. If there's something you can do in WoW, this guy seems to have done it. He hasn't finished this year's Winter's Veil achievement yet (it's not actually possible until the 15th), but he has done a PvP achievement twice, apparently, so he's still 986/986. I'm still a little doubtful: as you can see above, the Feats of Strength bar looks like it's empty, but this guy actually has lots of Feats done as well, including all of the realm first feats (including First Aid, and Leatherworking, all within days of each other). It just doesn't seem possible that one character could do all of that. But it all seems to check out, so we'll give him his due: Congratulations, "Littlegray" of Wrathbringer. And just in case you hadn't heard: there are other games to play. Update: I thought Insane in the Membrane was an achievement, but it is actually a Feat, and he does not have it. Thanks commenters for the clarification.
BG Hero tracks your battleground activity
I'm really impressed with BG Hero. We take a look at these stats sites pretty often, but I have never seen a site targeted strictly at PvP data like this one, and with such a clean and interesting view. Unfortunately, it's still getting off the ground, so we're probably going to give the server a run for its money with this link, but give it a few days and head back there when they've smoothed things out.It'll track your plays and wins in each BG, obviously, but you can also get a whole bunch of graphs and numbers about how you're doing each time you play, including HKs per BG, and killing blows per battleground that you play. The app also tracks your totals daily and weekly, so if you get your character in there and let it update over a period of time, you can see just how you're doing. Pretty amazing stuff if you've been playing a lot of battlegrounds lately (and with the extra XP in there, why wouldn't you?). We're told the site is still being worked on, so expect more updates soon (and Phood is keeping info flowing on his blog), but in the meantime, it looks like a great way to look at your BG progress in more detail.
Achieved shares your achievements on Facebook
While we were all wildin' out at BlizzCon last week, reader Peter G. sent us a little note about a Facebook app he's been working on called Achieved that will take your achievements and insert them into your various Facebook feeds however you like. If you want to go the whole nine yards and have your wall plastered with a story whenever you ding an achievement, you can do that, or if you just want to leave it as a small box on your profile page, you can do that as well. The app allows you to leave your actual character name out of the post (if for some reason you're not comfortable with sharing it with all your friends), and there's even a paid option: if you can throw in at least $.99 Canadian, the app will update straight from the Armory without any help from you to refresh (normally, I guess, you've got to log in to Facebook to get updates).I like the app's minimalism more than anything else -- it doesn't show character information or any flashy graphics, just updates people on what you're doing with achievements. The app has a really active changelog, too (Peter is working hard on updating it pretty often, it seems), so if you have a request, you can always throw it in the pot and you might even get it granted. It's not quite as comprehensive as some of the other WoW Facebook apps out there, but if you want a quick way of showing Facebook friends what you're up to in game without excessively spamming them on every little ding or gear upgrade, give it a look for sure.
The best of WoW.com: July 14-21, 2009
Joystiq's sister site WoW.com covers every corner of Azeroth, the virtual world that holds the World of Warcraft. Here's a look at ten of our most popular stories from the last week. News New Halloween masks point to a playable race?Do new masks found in the game files point to Worgen and Goblin as the two new playable races? Blizzard warns against Three Wolf Moon at BlizzConA hint at a wolf-like race for the new expansion? Or just a joke about the most awesome t-shirt ever? WoW Armory for the iPhone releasedBlizzard releases a free Armory app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Mining the Armory for Hunter pet statisticsA study of Hunter stats shows some interesting facts about the pets they're choosing. Is WoW being run by the B-team?Has Blizzard moved on from its biggest cash cow? Features Breakfast Topic: Would you play a Worgen or a Goblin?With the recent speculation about races, we want to know: would you play one? Time is Money: Capitalizing on Patch 3.2How to make some moolah with the brand new patch. Why leveling will always be important to WoWThe leveling grind is an important part of any MMO, and our game is no different. TurpsterVision: Multiboxing, recruit-a-friend styleEveryone's favorite T shows you how to multibox like a madman. Drama Mamas: Of phone calls and slanderersHave some drama? Let the mamas help.
Breakfast Topic: Can you have too many alts?
I installed the new Armory app on my beloved iPhone a few mornings ago and I love it. Seriously, it had to be the best app yet. Now if only there was one which would let you send in-game mail/work the AH without logging in but that's for another Breakfast Topic. Today's is all about alts, specifically how many you have and whether it is possible to have too many.Loading up the app, I was distracted not by the cool sound effects or the sparklyness of the app but by the number of alts I have lying around. By that I don't mean active alts, I generally focus my attention on my main Serisa, but I do have a lot scattered around numerous European servers. It's quite odd to have an app tied to my account which shows all my alts, rather than ones I select (as with previous non-Blizzard iPhone apps).The other day I was talking with a friend of mine. He seems to have a thousand alts, so many that he didn't have a precise number. I asked if he had any idea of the cap for such and he guessed it had to be about fifty. He assured me if there was a cap, he hadn't hit it yet. But looking at the app, I was quite surprised by the sheer number of level 1-10 toons I have lying forgotten on servers I never visit anymore, from days when Daggerspine was down and I wanted to play Horde on another realm (usually Blood Elf females). So, come on readers, I ask you. Can you have too many alts? If yes, what's your record?
Mining the armory for Hunter pet statistics
With Hunter pet information recently added to the armory, Data Miner Zardoz has wasted no time getting his hands on the raw Hunter pet data and breaking it down. The data is only for level 80 Hunters, and only 10,000 of those at that, but it still gives a very interesting snapshot of what's going with the Hunter's best friends. It might not be too big a surprise that Cats are far and away the most popular pet at a count of around 9500, nearly doubling again the amount of Wolves, who come in just under 5000, which are in turn used in numbers over twice as much as the next popular choice, Gorillas, who are just above 2800 in number. Now mind you, this information does take into account pets that are in the stables as well, and there's certainly the possibility that a lot of them have just stayed in the stables for a long time.
