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The Best of WoW Insider: December 2011
Bearheals: (on archaeology) The smallest distance between two points is a bunch of erratic zigzags. After patch 4.3 went live in late November, class columnists and commenters busied themselves with the new 5-mans and Dragon Soul raid. I think it's safe to say that Raid Finder problems have dominated December commentary. Players loved it as a feature, but they hated the various cheats that guilds used to get themselves to a four-piece tier bonus as quickly as possible, and they especially hated the outbreak of loot greed. More on this past the cut. That wraps up our look back at 2011, and I'm looking forward to a bright, happy, and hopefully less trees-falling-on-my-house-filled 2012, even if the world is apparently scheduled to come to a crashing halt next December. Happy New Year, everyone, and if you're out partying tonight, stay safe.
Breakfast Topic: What was your favorite WoW moment of 2011?
Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! It's almost time to throw your old 2011 Justin Bieber calendar in the trash and hang your new 2012 Justin Bieber calendar. No doubt, 2011 has been a heck of a year so far -- we were introduced to Mists of Pandaria, we killed Deathwing with 24 complete and total strangers, we BlizzConned, and we visited parallel universes. There's been a lot of really awesome stuff going down, and at WoW Insider, we've been in a reminiscing mood. But don't let us have all the fun. We want to know what your favorite World of Warcraft moment was this past year. Was it the time your guild finally downed heroic Ragnaros? Was it the time you scored that Cho'gall kill with only one person left standing? The moment you hit the 999,999 gold cap? Or was it something more personal -- say, that moment your boyfriend shared news of your wedding proposal via a popular World of Warcraft website?
The Best of WoW Insider: October 2011
@Druidis4fite The AH Fee structure is a regressive tax on the poor. #OccupyGregStreet @Warcraft This movement doesn't seem to have a clear message. -- CM Lylirra As with all BlizzCon-related months, October was jam-packed and probably the busiest month of 2011 for the site. However, this bit of news belongs in a special category all its own: Hello and Goodbye. Dan O'Halloran, our fearless editor-in-chief and a mysterious figure who communicated largely through a series of lolcats, left to head up Tecca, and Alex Ziebart took the reins. Goodbye, farewell, and amen, Dan. By the way, the image you see above is Fox's response to Dan's email earlier this year about restarting the About the Bloggers series.
The Best of WoW Insider: September 2011
Curulan: Pigeon raid boss. I love it. GET ON THIS, BLIZZARD. September was pretty much all patch 4.3, all the time. The PTR didn't actually go live until close to the end of the month, but we definitely made up for lost time when it did. Transmogrification thoughts still dominated the site's more idle discussion -- who doesn't love cool-looking gear? -- but art-related talk kicked into high gear once everyone saw the visual proc off the new rogue legendary. That would go on to provide one of December's better jokes.
The Best of WoW Insider: August 2011
Candida: Knitting Grandmas would be an awesome guild name. Money, money, money, money. Money! August saw an avalanche of money and gold-related discussion as Blizzard announced that Diablo 3 would feature a real-money Auction House. Oh, and Blizzard registered Mists of Pandaria as a trademark, spurring an endless series of fights on what the hell was going on with that. And then it announced transmogrification and void storage, and we all forgot about pandas for a bit in the interest of farming old raids for some sweet-looking gear. And holy mother of God, Drama Mamas was on a roll this month.
The Best of WoW Insider: July 2011
Rekon13: To make you look at other gearing options, we've decided to remove other gearing options. July was a very busy month for the site. Patch 4.2 hit in late June and with it, the Molten Front, Firelands, and a slew of mechanics and policy changes for the game. The latter is something you'll see pop up in our news coverage quite a bit -- but for my money, the best news item from July 2011 concerned a theme park in China that was just too troublesome to license.
The Best of WoW Insider: June 2011
Merry Christmas to all those of you who celebrate! June 2011 was a pretty patch-oriented month. 4.2 was still on the PTR, and we slowly wound our way through the content there, writing as we went. As with patch 4.1, it was a late entrant in the month it debuted, so you'll see most of our commentary from the live servers in July.
The Best of WoW Insider: May 2011
Does WoW ever creep you out? NoYou Read trade for more than 20 seconds and you can make a strong case against evolution. CloakedDrifter The Goldshire inn on Moon Guard. *shudder* MattKrotzer It creeps me out that one of the quest writers has such a fascination with poop, and making us sift through it. This was a news-heavy month due to patch 4.1's dropping in late April and the quick arrival of patch 4.2 on the Public Test Realm. However, it was also a vibrant month for the arts scene, and WoW Archivist was en fuego in May. Did you know that Molten Core shipped with a third legendary? Don't lie.
The Best of WoW Insider: April 2011
Afrozombie: At least we know why it took so long for them to release (the new version of Zul'Gurub). They were stuck waiting for (Bloodlord Mandokir) to finally find and solve his sword, Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds. You know all that editorializing and back-and-forth discussion you saw in January and February over the Dungeon Finder and how much work Blizzard did to improve a slow-moving DPS queue? Things came to a head in April with the announcement of the Call to Arms system, a still-controversial decision that provoked wide-ranging debate. Are tanking and healing just too difficult and stressful for PUGs these days? Is it really fair to functionally deny DPS a shot at the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries? And why haven't I gotten any rare pets or mounts out of it yet? Weirdly, the other issue that kept cropping up in April discussion was that of Horde leadership and whether Garrosh was fit to be within 50 miles of it. Part of me wonders if it's simply because new raid content wasn't on the horizon for a few months, and lore concerns tend to be popular topics whenever that's the case. The other part of me points out that Portal 2 went live on April 19, and it's kind of a miracle that anything got written at all on this site afterwards.
The Best of WoW Insider: March 2011
Rai Yer a wizard, Harrypotterarthasdk. In marked contrast to February, this was a fabulous time for the arts and WoW Moviewatch. However, what jumps out at me most about March are the number of things that, with the benefit of hindsight, we realized Blizzard was already thinking about for Mists of Pandaria. Stat scaling, tank design, and cryptic responses in the developer Q&As from March all make reappearances later in the year. You won't see quite so many editorials this time around, as most of our writers were too busy getting pasted in the revamped troll dungeons (or, as Sacco referred to them, Zul'Again) on the patch 4.1 PTR. Oh, and Adam introduced us all to Rebecca Black's Friday. %&* you, Adam.
The Best of WoW Insider: February 2011
Croe We even had a tank go to the first boss in Stonecore for farming a mount, and dropped immediately afterwards. Snuzzle He's gonna be joining and dropping Stonecore for a while then, 'cause the mount drops from the second boss. This was a relatively slow month for WoW Moviewatch, although there were a few sterling exceptions. I suspect most machinimators were still too busy leveling or gearing toons to crank out a lot of new material. However, that didn't stop other players from offering a wealth of opinions on how to fix an ongoing rash of issues with the Dungeon Finder, and I think February is really the month where frustration with the number of players trying to beat the system reached its peak. And -- oops -- Blizzard finally fixed a bug that had unintentionally been adding to everyone's misery in 5-mans.
The Best of WoW Insider: January 2011
Revrant: (What's the best new quest of the expansion?) The Bears Up There. Climb a tree, grab bear cubs, throw them screaming through the air, and they explode if you miss. Good gravy -- this is the third year I've written a Best of the Year series for WoW Insider! Longtime readers will probably know the drill, but if you don't, from today through Dec. 31, you'll find an article each day recapping the best and most representative articles published on WoW Insider for a given month. Depending on the month, the collection of articles you'll find numbers between 5% and 15% of what we published. We've tried hard to pick the stuff that best captured WoW's fast-changing zeitgeist. Cataclysm was still a fresh expansion in January 2011, with the attendant problems and pleasures that new expansions bring. The trend that's most apparent here as I look through our January articles is the amount of discussion over the problems with the Dungeon Finder, leveling, and Tol Barad. Suffice it to say that January was an incredibly prolific month for our editorialists.
The Best of WoW Insider: December 2010
The expansion went live, and in short order became the fastest-selling PC game of all time. We were too busy playing it to write anything, though. Yeah, that's a lie. As an aside, we wanted to thank our readers for hanging with us this past year -- for the comments, the tweets, the emails, and just being around. This site is nothing without its readership. It's been a great year, and tonight we'll toast to another one. Happy New Year, everyone! Interestingly, December's been a great month for the Gold Capped and Know Your Lore columns. And, for the sake of accuracy, the "I broke your world!" image doesn't belong to December but to the series of bug posts from (I think) patch 4.0.3. Oh well. News Cataclysm launches in Europe, servers currently down "In what may be the least surprising event of the year, Europe's World of Warcraft servers have gone down almost immediately after the expansion's launch in that region." Cataclysm is the fastest-selling PC game of all time so far So what poor game was the one that lost to its record to Cataclysm this year? A little expansion by the name of Wrath of the Lich King. Guild experience no longer earned via guild achievements When guild experience became unobtainable from guild achievements, a lot of players who'd made extensive preparations were left out in the cold. Blizzard debuts the World of Warcraft game guide The Game Guide that Blizzard published on the still-new Battle.net got high marks from staffers and readers. Ghostcrawler talks tanks and threat Tanks and DPS are eying each other with no small amount of distrust in the new Cataclysm heroics. Great discussion in the comments. Alex Afrasiabi discusses new zones and upcoming content on G4 Already bored with the expansion (if you are, seek help)? We've got a look at patch 4.1 for you here.
The Best of WoW Insider: November 2010
The cataclysm went live in the form of patch 4.0.3a. We thought that was pretty cool. Also, Orgrimmar got the equivalent of a raid boss. That was also pretty cool. Oddly, on top of all the news that came rushing in this November, it was another great month for the arts scene. News Ghostcrawler shares DPS spec design philosophy for Cataclysm The entire article is worth a read, but there's one particularly stand-out point here: "Players are much more tolerant of huge, sweeping changes between expansions than they are in between patches." Ghostcrawler on the evolution of rotation complexity One of the things you start to wonder about when points like this are made is whether the bevy of fan sites out there lecturing players on spec and rotation choice is ultimately doing more harm than good for the game. Cataclysm: Gamon, legendary villain of Orgrimmar, made even more elite The usual target of bored Hordies parked in Orgrimmar, Gamon was made a level 85 elite for Cataclysm. On my own server, a pile of skeletons testified to the number of players who thought that taking an idle swing at him was still in the cards.
The Best of WoW Insider: October 2010
BlizzCon, BlizzCon, BlizzCon! October revolved around the events and revelations of the annual Blizzard convention ... not that there were a lot of revelations this year. Oh well, we still had fun. This was another month with a ton of articles devoted to straight news reporting, but patch 4.0.1 and the annual Hallow's End holiday also went live. Unfortunately for players, so did a nasty little bug related to the holiday boss. Otherwise, this was also a great month for Blood Sport and WoW Moviewatch. News Cataclysm: New 600 member hard cap imposed on guilds This was a problem for many guilds -- our own <It Came From the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-H) among them. Official 4.0.1 patch notes It begins. World of Warcraft reaches 12 million players WoW officially reached 12 million players -- and that's not all-time, that's current subscribers. Adam observes, "That's a lot of Deadmines runs." BlizzCon 2010: Cataclysm will be available for digital download The sound you heard was that of geeks everywhere without access to a midnight launch screaming for joy.
The Best of WoW Insider: September 2010
While drafting this outing of The Best of WoW Insider 2010, I realized that Chase's The Light and How to Swing it: Why is the mana gone? was accidentally slapped into the May 2010 edition. Whoops. It's really supposed to be here, so I've engaged in a little cut-and-paste. Otherwise, the march of Cataclysm news continued in September, and with it came a few startling announcements that didn't go over too well with players. Who knew portals would be such a hot-button topic?
The Best of WoW Insider: August 2010
Beta news started to come in at the approximate pace of an avalanche this month, so we devoted a lot of time to straight news reporting that'll probably feel a bit dated now that the expansion's gone live. We've selected the more timely bits. Also, the news of Blizzard having to monitor Goldshire on Moon Guard (US-RP) will never not be funny. News Cataclysm beta: Thrall receives a new model Mirroring similar updates to high-profile faction leaders during the Wrath beta, Thrall finally got a makeover and shed Orgrim Doomhammer's armor in favor of more shamanistic regalia. He also looks quite a bit older, but as our commenter Shiro_Shishi wrote, "If I had to deal with Garrosh every day for weeks, I would age faster too." Blizzard to patrol Moon Guard's Goldshire for harassment, erotic role playing Words fail me. China is finally getting Wrath of the Lich King It took absolute ages for Wrath of the Lich King to reach Chinese players. If you're curious about why the process was so arduous, Sacco broke it down. Cataclysm beta: Login screen music The Cataclysm login music is greeted by widespread approval, though players worried about the possible return of the "login dragon."
The Best of WoW Insider: July 2010
Two words: Real ID. July was defined by the latest iteration of an old meta-game, Blizzard versus Players. The community had an almost universally hostile reaction to Blizzard's announcement that the use of one's real name would be required for posting on the Battle.net forums, and the controversy raged to newspapers, magazines, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), and third-party sites very quickly. Predictably, it only took 4chan about 10 minutes to publish the names, addresses, phone numbers, profiles, blood types, and favorite movies of every prominent Blizzard employee it could find. The sad thing is, the issue may not even be over despite Blizzard's backing down; the best that players could get from the company was language indicating it could be a temporary reprieve at best. Quoth the dime-store movie villain, this isn't over -- and it's not going to be, as long as Facebook's making serious bank. On the lighter side, the above scene from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (NSFW due to language and violence) started circulating among several WoW communities during the controversy as proof that the loss of online privacy didn't have to be a bad thing, as long as you were the one capitalizing on it.
The Best of WoW Insider: June 2010
A Merry Christmas to all those of you who celebrate! Today we're going to tackle June 2010, which was a relatively slow month for us. The Cataclysm beta was in full swing at that point, but most of our staffers didn't yet have keys. Raid content on the live servers got a slight boost with the introduction of the Ruby Sanctum, but apart from that, this was largely a month's worth of waiting on beta news and examining what Wrath's legacy would be to the game. Incidentally, it was a great month for The Lawbringer column. News World of Warcraft patch 3.3.5 notes Patch 3.3.5 went live, and with it the Ruby Sanctum -- Wrath's last raid. Patch 3.3.5: Changes to vote kick incoming The vote kick system for the dungeon finder was tinkered with to reward players who kick less often. I've often wondered what my own statistics on this look like; as the tank, I seem to end up with the responsibility to initiate a vote kick on disconnected or AFK players much more frequently than when I'm healing. Cataclysm beta: Cataclysm will bring dwarf and troll warlocks This was a sudden announcement that nobody really anticipated, and I've always wondered if it had anything to do with Blizzard's desire to shore up the population of pure DPS classes.
The Best of WoW Insider: May 2010
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. -- John Gilmore That quote'll come in handy for understanding May. The Cataclysm alpha was released and stayed private for all of about five minutes before appearing online, leading to a flurry of cease-and-desist letters (we assume) and probably some angst on Blizzard's end on the odds of keeping anything secret anymore. On the other hand, if you were looking for amazing new art, peeks at the soon-to-be-revamped-again talent trees, or Garrosh's new model, May was a great month for you. News Hunter beats Wrath of the Lich King I didn't think it was possible for someone to get every achievement point in the game, though Basil insisted, "This just proves the superiority of the hunter class." Patch 3.3.5: PTR Battle.net Real ID system This was the first any of us had seen of the soon-to-come Real ID feature, and we thought it was a nifty feature as long as you knew a person in real life. "(Obviously), this is not something you want to do with someone you've only ever known in game," Gregg observed. Famous last words. Battle.net will integrate with Facebook Maybe we should've seen this fiasco coming. Jace Hall tackles media coverage of WoW addiction The frequent but often unacknowledged bugaboo of the WoW subculture -- the specter of addiction -- isn't always treated fairly or accurately by the media. Jace Hall took a frank look. Blizzard to break the AVR mod in patch 3.3.5 AVR had popped up on the scene not long before, and most players only thought of it as a funny little mod that let you draw penises on the game world. More enterprising players quickly figured out that it could also be used to pinpoint the exact damage area of Malleable Goo on Putricide, and things snowballed from there. Developers cried foul.
