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Sunday Morning Funnies: Rouges in Azertoh
This week we have an NPC coup, a battle of the bands, two strikes, and of course, the much beloved mischief. In the Scout Report, #37, a new activist wanders onto the scene. From the Noob Comic comes Area Effect. Sometimes, a mage just can't help himself. Messy Cow has some adventures in Skinning, although she should have been healing. The best part? The "rouge" who was stealing corpses! Teh Gladiators battle their stealthed opponents, and the Murlocs heat up the scene. This week, the commentary beneath the comic is decidedly worth the read. Sockpuppet holds the "Azertoh Battle of the Bands." Yes, I said "Azertoh." Want to see a raid with the characters from Real Life? NoObz #9 brings you to a special mob-held meeting of sorts, where you get to meet the gray kangaroo (wolf). The old computer has finally broken him. A friend of Monkey Punchers is finally Losing It. In LFG this week, my favorite character breaks into a song and dance! Shakes and Fidget have made their Preparations, and with proper hilarity ensuing. This week on Dark Legacy Comics, the NPCs launch plans to take over the world, through Operation: Horace. From Action Trip comes Impressive Knowledge. Seriously, kids these days really know their stuff! Sure, they might lose a finger or a hand, but then they'll know which faction they're dealing with, right? Pass through the break to vote for your favorite from this week's selection.
The Gaming Iconoclast: Discomfort Zone
A mind, once opened, can never be shut again. -- Alfred EinsteinHave you ever wondered how the other half lives? Maybe you're a tank, and know the intricacies of threat and mitigation inside and out, but can't figure out what those finger-wigglers at the back are going on about. Or perhaps you're a sniper, and don't care about what goes on in the melee fracas.When the game itself runs out of challenges for you, and you're not ready to move on, it becomes time to challenge ourselves. We may not be ready or willing to move to another virtual world altogether -- we've got friends in a guild that we want to keep playing with, for example, not to mention all the sparkly toys we've accrued. If you've gotten too good at your primary role, and keep frequent company with a group who is likewise adept at what they do, it can be easy to grow complacent. There are ways to spice things up once in a while, by doing themed events, or partaking in certain vices. But these are temporary measures, more the exception than the rule.To truly push ourselves, we need to step fully clear from what we've mastered. For some folks, it may be sidling around from the bad guy's face to their back, or trading in some brass knuckles for a crossbow. For me, it meant wading into the thick of the fray, rather than lobbing damage or healing from a more-or-less safe distance. In this spirit, I wanted to learn what those sneaky guys at the top of the damage charts were up to.How hard could it be, right?
The epic raid AFK
There are few things more frustrating in the game than a person going AFK in the middle of a fight. Sometimes there are good reasons, and sometimes the reasons are...less than adequate. But no matter what, we all have an epic AFK story that makes us laugh and cry all at the same time.The ultimate AFK (so far) in my WoW career happened while we were on Illidan last week. Uly, a good Mage in our guild, was standing with the ranged group dpsing Illidan during phase 1. He was a little high on threat, so he switched to his wand. Nothing wrong there.So he's standing there, wanding away as I'm moving Illidan across the terrace to avoid the fire. It looks like he's doing his job. He get the parasites."Uly," the raid leader calls out.A second goes by."Uly, move," calls the class lead.Another moment."Oh $!@# he's AFK."
Insider Trader: Tradeskills for noobs
You've entered Azeroth with a brand spanking new character and you're trying to find your footing in the world. Perhaps this is even your first MMO entirely, and while looking for guidance, you're overwhelmed at the sheer volume of information available. Sound like you? While our very own WoW Rookie column has a wealth of information specifically tailored to new players, this week's Insider Trader is going to go in-depth and personal with your profession choices to help make sure that you get the job you want. Whether you are looking for a challenge, thinking ahead to your future, or looking to maximize your profit, you'll find the advice you need to make an informed decision. Have you already chosen, and are regretting it? Never fear, I'll walk you through backing out of the deal and finding something that really suits you.Make sure not to skip the comments section, as input and personal experience will help you learn about the different outcomes you might face.
TV shows that could be MMOs: Battlestar Galactica
Watching the final season of the new Battlestar Galactica the other night, and getting only a taste of the amazing, chaotic, shaky-cam ship-to-ship action left us wanting more. But even better than a full episode devoted to space combat would be an MMO based in that world. How would that work, you ask? We're glad you did! Keep in mind that this article assumes basic knowledge of the show universe and its characters. If you haven't seen it, get thee to a torrent, or a rental store immediately!First, consider some of the great two-sided rivalries in MMOs: Horde vs. Alliance; AFS vs. the Bane; Humanity vs. Hell -- Mankind vs. the Cylons fits right in. In fact, since the show itself manages to portray both sides as sympathetic, there isn't too much storyline massaging to be done; the universe of Galactica is nicely morally ambiguous. All that really matters is survival.
The Daily Grind: What was your first guild like?
We're not entirely certain how this topic got started up recently, but we've seen both Scott at Pumping Irony and Mightydar have a bit of fun with it, and we thought we'd jump on the bandwagon. (We just can't resist fun and funny topics!) So, this morning we'd like to ask you what was your first-ever guild like? Was it a great place to play with some thoughtful and kind folks, or was it one drama-bomb after another? Personally, I landed in a guild in EverQuest that was self-destructing, but managed to make good friends there fast enough to score an invite to a much better guild a week or so after the first one imploded. (I also think it gave me a great example of what not to do when running a guild!) How about you? What was your first-ever guild like?
Blood Pact: Why we Lock
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's recently started to plumb the depths of SSC with his 0/21/40 build and bragging about 8k shadow bolts.I've been playing my Warlock main since forever. While some guildies have kept themselves busy by bring their fifth or sixth toon through Karazhan attunement, I've been content pottering around with my warlock, dipping into alts only when there aren't any groups or raids going on.I've talked about leveling a Warlock, but haven't really looked at why people would pick this class in the first place. Or why some don't. So all the WoW rookies out there still sitting on the fence of class choices, or seasoned players considering yet another alt, consider this an expansion of the Warlock section in Elizabeth's excellent "Choose your class!" article.
WoW Moviewatch: Teh nOOb song
If you read a post yesterday about noobs who like to pretend that other people are teh noobs, then you may already have clicked on the link for this song. It truly deserves its own spotlight, however. So on behalf of all the noobs out there who noobishly hope to one day not be so nooby anymore, let's give a shout out to Olibith and PurePwnage for another music video masterpiece: "teh n00b song" -- winner of the Warcraft Movies Fabled Few contest in the music category![Via Myndflame.com]Previously, on WoW Moviewatch...
Welcome to "noob season"
I don't know if I quite buy this one, but it's an interesting idea: Jias says that this week begins a period of time in the World of Warcraft known as "noob season": all of the folks who found WoW under their tree, or decided to use their gift cards to try out "the Shatner game" are going to be rolling their first character over the next couple of weeks, and will probably have lots of questions and very little learned etiquette.Jias sees it as a bad thing (we have to deal with noobs), but I tend to go a little more toward Neth's side of the argument: it's a chance to be veterans of the game, and to help players who haven't seen all this stuff before figure it out. Just last night, I was leveling my Hunter and decided to join a PUG in Blackrock Depths out of the blue-- for some reason, only one of them had ever been in the instance before. But being an old hand, I led them through all the twists and turns down there, and we finished all the quests through the Attunement rock (The Lyceum gave us a little trouble, but it was late, so we called it).Will there be a few more players asking for gold or not quite clear that all tanks should be carrying a shield? Probably. But we should probably be as welcoming and patient with these folks as possible-- they'll be the same people listening on the LFG channel when you ask "LFM for Utgarde Keep."
Cinemassively: NooB - Episode 01
When a new resident arrives in Second Life, he meets an equally clueless girl. Together, they figure out how to fly, but when he loses her in the sky, he begins to worry. His adventures take him to a club, where he is tricked into looking stupid, then to the home of a griefer, where he is imprisoned. Will he be able to escape? Who is that strange lady and what does she want with him? What happened to the girl he first met? I really hope that there's an episode 02 to answer these questions!NooB is the SL Machinima that I've been waiting for. It's smart, witty, and informative. They even manage to fit in advertising! While I can tell that the UI is on, but covered up, it's not as obvious as many others. I do have to warn you that there is some strong language on occasion, however it's not that bad. My only actual complaint is that they used the word "first" to describe it.
Don't pay extra for the white
If you think back to your first character, you will probably cringe at the memories of some of the mistakes you made. At the time, I remember things being very confusing; later, it just seems silly. One of the most common mistakes made by new players is spending money where they shouldn't, or spending more than they could have. This may not be of consequence to a level 70, or to those who have level 70s funding their lower characters; but for anyone leveling for the first time, getting swindled can severely eat into your wallet. When leveling professions in particular, which is a very expensive endeavor, one must take extra care. The various recipes you can purchase in the auction house are sometimes overpriced, and other times, are scamming you out of figures such as 80x more than you would have otherwise paid. How can this be? The main way in which you'll see players getting away with this is through selling patterns that are white, as opposed to green, blue or purple. White patterns are vendor-quality items, which means that there are vendors out there, somewhere, that are selling them. Often for 25s-1g pre-Outland, and 4-6g in Outland. These same patterns often sell on the Auction House for up to 20g. In fact, many players go out of their way to hunt down white patterns and sell them at marked up prices. Here are some ways to determine whether the player selling your item is a reseller: Is that player selling multiples of the same pattern? Does the player have other white patterns for sale?
Newcomers in the WoW community
Most games have a beginning and an end -- if people want more, the developers produce a sequel. But games like WoW are different, of course, because everyone is paying by the month in order to play together, and the developers are constantly adding some new content revising the old. As time goes by, though, a rift appears between people who have been playing a long time and people who are just getting started. Not only does the game development company have to make some hard decisions about whether it's more important to keep people playing every month or to get new people to start from the beginning, but the old players have to figure out how the new ones are going to fit into the social system they've developed.The Burning Crusade tried to appeal to both sorts of gamers, with added content for both ends of the player community, but Wrath of the Lich King is taking another direction, with most of its content only for people who are ready to leave Outland behind. But the patch 2.3 changes reveal a different strategy for attracting new WoW players: rather than adding new content to attract new players, Blizzard can just make the old content faster, more streamlined, and get new players into the new higher-level content more reliably. Will this keep new players coming? Does Blizzard even need new players, financially speaking, or are they content to just try and keep all the existing players subscribing for as long as possible? Either way, a more vital issue is at stake: As the WoW community has gotten older, we have noticed some old-time WoW players like to complain about "noobs" a lot, in a way that doesn't leave any room for new people to join in on the activities. For a newcomer, it feels like an exclusionist attitude. The "noobs" are running around in all the wrong gear, using all the wrong strategies, precisely because no one has interacted with them enough for them to learn how things are done here. Some aspects of WoW are not at all easy or intuitive, and it's counterproductive to blame the noobs instead of reaching out and lending a helping hand where appropriate.
Breakfast Topic: What does that mean?
The people who play WoW share a common set of experiences and they naturally tend to talk a lot about these things in shortened language, using terms that most everyone in the game learns pretty quickly. In addition, WoW players are denizens of this larger group of people who just use the Internet and have developed many special ways of talking about that as well.But we often forget that some people coming newly to the game (or even the Internet) may have no idea what we're talking about. Also a lot of us learn the meanings of words like "pwnage" and "noob" without ever actually learning where these words come from.Are there any specialized words in the WoW community that, to this day, don't make any sense to you? Are there some words that you think you understand a little but not very much? Which words do you understand completely but wonder about how they came to be used this way?
WoW Rookie: Money-making 101
Once a week, WoW Rookie attempts to bring new players useful tips and tricks on improving their game.My first character rarely managed to keep more than a gold to her name until after she hit level 60, and I imagine the story is similar for most new players. There are plenty of skills to buy, so many professions to learn about, and always the lure of the auction house attempting to part you from your hard-earned coin. If I only knew then what I know now, mount money at 40 wouldn't have given me such grief -- instead of being frustrated over my lack of funding, I could have been frolicking through Azeroth on a brand new pony. But for new players struggling with money right now, I'm going to offer a few reasonable financial suggestions to help you on the road to your first big purchase.
Today's most commented video: Message board sketch
In this NSFW (for language) video short, CollegeHumor applies the message-board mechanics to a business setting for amusing results. Quality writing offsets the week-and-a-half age. (And we're sure you'll be inspired to tell us off in the comments after viewing.)Watch the video after the break, and leave your own hilarious message.[Image credit]
World Wide Wow: Welcome to "Messy Cow"
A recent addition to Blizzard's fan art page shows a dramatic cast of characters for a new online comic entitled Messy Cow, by a talented illustrator named Weng Chen. I always love to see new webcomics, especially WoW-related ones, so naturally I headed over to messycow.com to check it out, and was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. Weng Chen (who also goes by the internet nickname "Wonn") has been drawing manga (an Asian style of comics) since she was 14, and recently been introduced to MMO gaming through WoW. She taps into a huge fanbase with a comic about WoW, too, and has gotten a good start on translating the comics from Chinese to English with the help of some native speakers. Messy Cow has 8 pages of comics in English at the time of this posting, with many many more in Chinese, and she seems to be translating them very quickly. So far, the English comics give a good sense of what it's like to be a new WoW player, finding lots of cute humor in the situations a new player faces, as well as highlighting some of the most important things a new player has to learn as he or she gets into the game, from how she chose her character, to how she learned about loot rules, to how she first got into PvP . If you have a friend who is new to the game or wondering what playing is like, this comic could be a great way to get her interested and comfortable with it.In addition, Messy Cow shows just how much of the WoW experience is the same, whether you are in the East or the West. Both sides of the world love this game, and deal with a lot of the same issues when entering into it for the first time. When people talk about WoW, anywhere in the world, it is a set of common experiences we share, a common culture that overlaps whatever differences there are between us. It may seem too idealistic to some, but in an era when there are wars and rumors of wars on the lips of people all over the world, mounted on top of so much fear and misunderstanding between cultures who really ought to have nothing to fight about, it's encouraging to see more evidence of the World of Warcraft bridging the gap -- one of many forms of media and culture that build common ground all around the world. In Azeroth, we relish the war, but on earth WoW fosters peace and shared identity.
WoW = low risk, high fun
World of Warcraft is successful largely because it is such an accessible game. You can get started without being a gaming-genius, and you can make progress in it without playing all day. There are advanced challenges to overcome if you want to excel of course, but for most people, WoW is a just a place where you can have a bit of fun without much chance of a negative experience. You don't have to pay a huge penalty for mistakes such as death, and you're likely to find variety of meaningful things to do in a relatively short period of time. The fact that there's not much actual risk in WoW is one of the things that lets so many people see how fun it is and sets it apart from other MMORPG games.I can understand the reasons some game designers and players may wish there were more serious risk of failure versus success in their video games. We are taught from real life that great success requires one not be afraid of failure, or at least be willing to take the chance. In real life, you may lose a lot of your hard work and all your efforts may come to naught, but if you don't try anyways, you'll never reap some of the great rewards that this world has to offer.But to apply this rule in a video game doesn't make any sense, because the majority of people, no matter how good a game is, are wisely unwilling to invest a lot of time and energy into it if it may end up to be a waste of time. It is just a game after all, and its rewards are only real within its little game world.
WoW Rookie: Choose your class!
UPDATE: See our updated guide for Wrath of the Lich King-era classes at WoW Rookie: Choose the right class.The first question many players have when they first tear open their World of Warcraft game box is, "What class should I play?" And I'm afraid that my standard answer to the question is terribly unhelpful, "Why don't you try them and see which one you like best?"I still think that's the best answer (I simply can't know all of your likes or dislikes to simply tell you "Mage" or "Shaman"), but today I'm going to try to give you a more helpful answer by defining the playstyles of each of the nine classes, and making some suggestions on which ones are the most newbie-friendly. So if you're trying to figure out which class might be best for you, read on!
6 Things You Need to Know About iPhone SMS
RU big n2 texting? Chek these 6 tips u need to no FTW. TUAW hopes they will help joo wid iphone txting. NP, our pleasure noob, newb or no. 1. Don't sign up for extra texts during activation. (See update) The default SMS-add-ons are expensive and limited. If you did sign up for them then call up AT&T, cancel the add on and request this $5 all-you-can eat unlimited messaging plan instead. TUAW reader Leo signed up and reports the $5 plan is indeed iPhone compatible--at least with the postpaid (normal) phone plan. Be persistent. The AT&T rep may have to search around to find the right plan. Ask for the option that adds unlimited mobile-to-mobile text messaging for $5 per month. Read more about this option at the Howard Forums. Remember, the mobile-to-mobile texts do not include Google SMS, AIM Mobile, Facebook or any other non-cellphone texts. If you use those services, you still might get charged per message. (Update: This unlimited plan may be limited only to other AT&T phones--in which case, you may want to just sign up for the normal messaging plans.) Update 2: According to a post at the MacRumor forums, you can add both that unlimited in-network messaging and 200 additional SMS msgs for $5/month. 2. You can send text messages to an iPhone by e-mail. Yeah, yeah, a lot of you already know about this. But many of our readers do not. And for you guys, here's how to do it: send your text message to phonenumber@cingularme.com (e.g. 7035551212@cingularme.com, just use the numbers, no hyphens, etc). Keep your message brief. Both the subject line and the message arrive on the iPhone. 3. It costs USD $0.15 to send and receive texts on an iPhone when using a prepaid plan. The money comes out of your account balance. If you're paying, say, 10 cents a minute, then a text would cost you one and a half minutes. Adjust the math according to your specific plan. (Mine is $0.15/minute, so one text is one minute.) This does not apply if you've added the $5/month all-you-can-eat text plan. 4. If you're on a limited prepaid plan, you'll receive a notification after each and every text. Yup, every single text you receive, every single text you send will cause the iPhone to display a message along the lines of "Your last transaction cost 0.15 USD. Your account balance is (whatever) USD". You must tap "Dismiss" every time. What a complete pain. Worse, at least in my experience, you have to dismiss this message before viewing the actual text you just received. AT&T says this is a feature, not a bug: "Your updated balance will be sent to your phone automatically after every call. you can also dial *777# at any time to see your current balance." I've tried this and it works. 5. All the Google SMS services work I'm not entirely sure why you'd want to use Google SMS but I tested it out and it certainly works. I texted fish tacos 80224 to Google and it replied with several local fish taco restaurants. Convenient when you're out of WiFi range and Safari with EDGE is responding too slowly. 6. SMS is not email SMS is limited to 160 characters per message. You can find any number of SMS FAQs via a Google search. kthxbai Leo, Jordan Golson, and Brian Rose and everyone else who tipped us off about message features and annoyances.
WoW Rookie: All you needed to know about stats, part 4
In the conclusion to this series of posts, we're going to be discussing the game's defensive stats -- which are probably only of minor importance unless you're interested in tanking. Though if you're one of those people (like me!) who has to know everything about the game, this is interesting information which will explain a lot of things about how damage is handled in World of Warcraft. If you're tuning in to all you needed to know about stats for the first time, it may be worthwhile to go back and read part 1 (covering the five basic attributes), part 2 (covering physical damage stats), and part 3 (covering spell damage stats) first -- but if you can't wait to know all there is to know about defense, resilience, spell resistance, dodge, parry, and block, keep reading!
