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Wowhead founder receives in-game homage
It seems that Blizzard snuck this one in quietly with Patch 3.1 as not a lot of people noticed, but thanks to Saithir of angrydwarfs for pointing it out. Apparently, an NPC named Loremaster Skosiris appeared at the top of Scryer's Tier in Shattrath tending to a new library of books. The NPC tends to a host of bookshelves that act as master trainers for primary and secondary professions, saying "Here I have amassed what may well be the greatest depository of lore in all of Outland. Even the grand libraries of Silvermoon City pale in comparison." Skosiris also tells players, "please... look, read, browse to your heart's content. You'll find everything organized and clearly labeled."Why is this so cool? Well, Skosiris is the name of the founder of everybody's favorite World of Warcraft database, Wowhead. What can be a more fitting tribute than an NPC that manages, well, data! So that's what the Scryers did with all those Arcane Tomes. Blizzard has given nods to the community in the past, most notably with the NPC Breanni, who operates the pet store in Dalaran, and even to now-retired Druid blogger Phaelia, who got an item appropriately named after her. These are the tiny little touches that remind all of us that Blizzard appreciates what the gaming community does. Even though Shattrath is now a ghost town, Loremaster Skosiris and his library is a pretty good reason to drop by. When you do swing by the Scryer's tier, don't forget to bring some tacos for this librarian.
Wowhead wants to send you to BlizzCon
The second and final round of BlizzCon tickets go on sale this Saturday, May 30, and I'm pretty sure they'll go fast - the first round sold out in half an hour. However, if you miss out on a ticket (or if you think they're just too expensive), you may have a chance to go anyway. Wowhead, along with APC (makers of UPSes and such), is running a contest over the next few weeks, with a drawing every day until June 18th. June 17th is the last day to enter; all you need to do is fill in your contact details on the contest page, and you're automatically entered for every drawing. Sadly, this contest is only open to US residents age 18 and older ("we know it sucks," Wowhead says). Oh right, the prizes. There is one grand prize, consisting of two tickets to BlizzCon, along with air fare and accommodations, an APC UPS, and a dinner with the Wowhead folks. Three lucky first-prize winners will get their choice of a Wii, a PS3, or an Xbox 360, as well as an APC surge protector. And every day that those prizes aren't given out, someone will win a Wowhead t-shirt and an APC surge protector. One of these last winners will be randomly chosen to win a Blizzcon ticket as well, at the end of the contest.
The Queue: rm -fR "World of Warcraft" && echo "Oops!"
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. Adam Holisky will be your host today. Many thanks to Sacco for covering The Queue last Friday. For some odd reason he decided to start drawing this weekend, and you can see one of his drawings above. For the other image you'll have to check out our Twitter page (it wasn't done when today's edition of The Queue was written).If you're wondering about the title, we're not going to talk about the mistake Adam made over the weekend when he was setting up WoW on his fresh dual-boot linux install. It's just really not worth going over how he managed to delete his WoW directory that has lasted him since pre-BC. Not at all.Remember that The Queue is here to answer your questions, and you can either leave them in a comment in this article or contact us with them. So without further ado...Swampsquach asked... "When you do the repeatable Frenzyheart/Oracle quest in Sholazar Basin, does it have any effect on the current rep you have with either one? For example, if I get revered with the Oracle's and then do that quest but pick Oracle's again, is that just free gold? Or does it set your rep back to honored?"
The Queue: Battle.net
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. So we said that we would have a special edition of The Queue this past Saturday. It never happened. Why? Well, the intent was for it to be entertainment while we all sat in the queue for BlizzCon tickets. Yammer about BlizzCon, get excited, all of that sort of thing. Adam and I put ourselves in the ticket queue, were getting ready to push the post out, and then... ticket sales were over. It was kind of a pointless post at that point! So it never happened. We apologize for that.The ticket sales went surprisingly smoothly. We're always going to find something to gripe about (holy crap why don't they have more tickets) but the whole thing didn't come tumbling down this year, and that's such a massive improvement over last year. It was a good thing.Dusseldorf asked..."Is there any benefit to converting my account to a Battle.net account? I see problems with Battle.net users logging in all the time, and was just wondering the point of converting."
The Queue: Of vampires and lances
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.We're going to jump right in today, because we have plenty to talk about this time around!NarwhalFrenzy asked..."Referring to the quest Out of Body Experience, we already know what happened to Prince Keleseth and Prince Valanar, but will we ever figure out what happened to the other darkfallen there, like Prince Theraldis or Prince Atherann?" I have no doubt we'll be seeing them in Patch 3.3, in and around Icecrown. Prince Theraldis (the one on a horse (with an equine-themed pashmina afghan)) seems to have been the overseer of that whole project going on during Out of Body Experience, so I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a raid boss and Prince Atherann is in a 5-man or a group quest elsewhere. Though it would be interesting if they were a side-by-side raid boss, like the Twin Emperors. Hm!
Player receives Developer item in the mail, one-shots Ulduar
Update April 30th, 2009: Karatechop's account has been closed. Read the full story here. We first received a tip on a mysterious guild that was blowing through Ulduar's hardest achievements one after the other, all in one day, about a day or two ago. Their gear and raid experience stated very well that they were in no position to do any of those achievements, but we sort of shrugged and let it pass by. It was odd that these players were barely in Naxxramas gear, and their first recorded Kel'thuzad kill was only two weeks prior to their explosion of Ulduar achievements, but we initially ignored these reports because surely, nobody could be hacking the game. On top of that, the forum threads submitted to us all had so many posts deleted from them that they were completely incomprehensible. There was nothing solid about any of it. Tips on it are still flooding our mailboxes today and a bit more information has surfaced, so let's look into it a little, shall we? The guild is The Marvel Family of US-Vek'nilash. The character Karatechop is the one that has attracted the most attention, and you'll see why in just a moment. If you look over his gear, it's not that bad, really. Epic tank gear, a lot of it from Naxxramas, so it's feasible that he could make some progress through Ulduar. It gets weird when you go to his Statistics and/or Achievements panels. Let's go to his statistics first.
Wowhead unveils new talent calculator
The talent calculator was Wowhead's original feature, and it's been a good friend through WoW's development. So it is with a heavy heart that I announce that Wowhead is shutting down the talent calculator. Nah, just kidding: they released an awesome new version today. The new version of the Wowhead talent calculator, in addition to looking even spiffier than usual, has a few added features: Glyphs, like the MMO-Champion calculator has had for a while (but prettier, of course) Auto-updating URL - no more need for a "link to this" button "Restore" button will reset a calculator if you got there from a link and then altered it All talents are now updated for patch 3.1, as well. The pet talent calculator has gotten the same treatment as the main talent calculator, with auto-updating URLs and a Restore button. The only thing I don't like about the new talent calculators is the way you select your class/pet family; it used to be a text list, and now it's an icon grid, which I find harder to use quickly, especially in the case of the pet calculator. But it's a small complaint.
Insider Trader: All about patch 3.1
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.This week Insider Trader will be discussing everything craftspeople need to know about patch 3.1. By the end of this article, you will know what you should be doing to prepare for patch day, what will be changing, and how the community is reacting to these changes.I have been covering these topics to the best of my abilities as information has been released and altered over the weeks, but as we draw closer to patch day, the post-patch scene is becoming increasingly easy to visualize.
Wowhead goes to War(hammer)
Wowhead is displaying a very large full page Warhammer ad right now. You can check out the picture above or head over to their site.We've received numerous tips about this, and I'm sure the folks over there would be touched to know that you all care so much. It's likely that the ad came down through their parent company zam.com – so don't read too much into it.But it is rather funny seeing a large Warhammer ad on a WoW site. These ads have also been known to exist on WoWWiki. They too likely have their ads chosen by their parent company Wikia, just like AOL does for WoW Insider.So enjoy the Warhammer ads on Wowhead for the time being. You can learn more about Warhammer over at our sister site Massively.
Is Wrath too easy, or are we just better?
In the eternal question of whether Wrath of the Lich King is too easy, Our Girl Friday posits an answer that I've often wondered about myself. Is it really that WotLK is so gosh-darned easy, or could the issue actually be that maybe, just maybe, the players have gotten better?The wealth of knowledge about the nuts-and-bolts of theorycraft has never been more available. New players and old veterans alike have resources like WoW Insider, Wowhead, WoWwiki, or that juggernaut of theorycraft, Elitist Jerks. There are strategy videos, stategy manuals, and even a few strategy comics. The forums themselves have never been more informative, especially when you consider Ghostcrawler laying down wisdom all over the place. The information about how to play is out there for the taking.And, c'mon. It's been about half a decade and near 12 million subscribers. Once you've done Nethekurse or Zereketh, you should know that you're not supposed to stand in pink, black, or red circles. Really, just don't stand in stuff. Is that really such a deep and meaningful skill that you have to relearn "Don't stand in stuff!" for Kel'Thuzad? So, if the Wrath raids aren't demanding a gear-based progression (meaning, it's all a gear check), then we should entertain the idea that we've gotten pretty good at not standing in stuff. That's certainly not the only raiding skill, but I'm using it as an indication that we're meeting the basic "skill" requirements.Of course, even Ghostcrawler has acknowledged that Naxxramas is somewhat the new welfare epics. We know that Ulduar's going to be noticeably more "difficult." But until then, we could probably accept that the current accessibility of content owes some part to us getting better as players.
Legal action between ZAM and Curse results in dismissal
So remember when Curse introduced their database last year called WoWDB, and we pointed out that it bore a strong resemblance to that other popular WoW database, Wowhead? Turns out ZAM, the owners of Wowhead after the acquisition a little while ago, agreed: completely under the radar last May, they filed a lawsuit for copyright infringment to the tune of no less than $1.5 million. ZAM says in the suit, copies of which we've obtained, that they've "expended substantial resources to maintain, update, and promote use of the WOWHEAD website so that it would become... one of the most recognized, and utilized websites designed to attract individuals" who play World of Warcraft. They claimed that WoWDB stole their look and layout purposely to create confusion among customers. This story wasn't reported in the WoW community at the time -- we hadn't heard about it at all until now.And then, in January of this year, the case was dismissed completely by a judge. We've also seen a copy of the order for dismissal, and from what it says, both sides wanted out: "Pursuant to the parties' stipulation for dismissal, the court hereby dismisses the above-captioned action without prejudice." We don't have any information, however, why the case was suddenly dismissed, but there may have been an agreement made between the two parties -- either money changed hands or WoWDB offered to change its look (as you can see, there's still many similarities between the two sites). Or, as a third option, ZAM just decided it wasn't worth fighting -- according to the comments and activity on both sites, WoWDB doesn't seem to be a serious threat to Wowhead.We've contacted both sides for comment, and we'll let you know if we hear anything from either one. On the front of it, this looks like ZAM was merely covering themselves -- they filed suit just in case, but never found cause to follow through. But there may be some other agreement between these two companies that lead to the case's dismissal.
WoW Rookie: Help!
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.Do you ask for help from other players in game? If you do, do the other players actually help out – or do they slam you for being a "stupid n00b"? Friendly reader Gisbon wrote in recently to say that while he enjoys helping new players, they don't always pick the best ways or times to ask. Granted, today's in-game culture is a little different than it was back in the day. In the earliest days of the game, before game information was readily available on the web, players had to ask other players for help in game. If you were confused by a class mechanic, you'd find a higher-level player and send a few whispers. If you were lucky, you'd find someone with time to answer (most seemed to be willing) and at least point you in the right direction. Today, questions to random strangers can net you insults for being clueless – but you could strike gold, too, with some great insights and the beginnings of a new friendship or mentor relationship.
Alternatives to WoWJutsu
It's very, very rare that pioneers are actually the best at what they do. They have great ideas, and those ideas revolutionize their field... but they're just ideas, concepts. It's not long before someone else improves those initial concepts and makes them the new standard. This more or less describes the situation around WoWJutsu.WoWJutsu was once the number one guild ranking website, tracking progression, boss kills and all of that great stuff. Unfortunately, it hasn't kept up with the times. WoWJutsu's tracking relies on the Armory, crawling the whole thing and using gear that characters have equipped to determine progress. In order for your guild's Malygos kill to be marked down, members of your guild need to have Malygos drops on their Armory profile. This is the only way, as far as I know, that WoWJutsu will list your kill.What does that mean? Well, it implies that guild progression isn't tracked properly at all. The first guild on a server to clear all of the content can easily come in third or fourth or twelfth on the ranking list. If your armory page doesn't update right away, that alone is going to throw your guild's progression record off. As minor as it may seem, it actually has some bad side effects, specifically when it comes to recruitment. If you claim your guild has cleared the hardest content in the game when you're looking for applicants, and people check WoWJutsu to make sure you're not making false claims... well, WoWJutsu's inaccuracies could imply that you're lying, when you're not at all. It's damaging.
Warcraft Chest and WoWTalent for iPhone
We posted about the Warcraft Characters app for the iPhone a while ago, and it's still the best way on Apple's mobile device to check your (or anyone else's) Armory entries. But a few other iPhone apps have popped up that might be useful to World of Warcraft fans -- both of these are free and both are worth checking out.Warcraft Chest will let you look at drops from all bosses in dungeons and raids, rep rewards, Badge items, and PvP rewards. So if you want to drool over your favorite items while away from the game, it'll let you do just that. Unfortunately, the interface is a little boring, as it's just your normal iPhone app; it would be nice to see some kind of Loot List functionality, where you could sort items by class or type. But if you're invited to a Heroic and want to see what drops in there without alt-tabbing out of your game, there you go.And WoWTalent will do the same thing for class talents -- you can browse through all the talent specs of every class, including all the Hunter pets and the various talents that come with each tree there. You can load and save trees to show your friends later, but unfortunately, there's no way right now to share them online -- the WoWHead talent trees are pretty URL-hackable, and it would be nice to be able to export a tree you create in WoWTalent out to a URL you can email or even tweet. But for browsing talents away from the game on the iPhone, it too works. As I said, both apps are free and available now.
The Queue: Sea shanty 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.Good afternoon, everyone! I'll waste no time trying desperately to be funny today, we'll just jump into this thing.Carda asked... Which heroic dungeon provides the most rep? Of course, this will probably vary depending on the amount of trash pulled (full clear vs. "just the pats, ma'am"), but accounting for bosses and essential trash pulls, where can I farm to max out my rep as quickly as I can?
The Queue: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!
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. Ah, another Sunday afternoon! Well, technically this was posted precisely at noon, which isn't the afternoon. But you're probably not reading it at the exact second It was posted, so you are reading it in the afternoon. Right? Right. Now, with that settled...Vinicius O. E. asked... What happened to the dance studios?
The Empire of Zul'drak issue resolved with a new quest
A lot of players aiming for the Loremaster achievement were hitting a snag in Zul'Drak. Because of one or two quests that were only able to be done while on a single questline, a lot of players that missed it initially were blocked from going back to it and were stuck at 99/100 quests. Patch 3.0.8 brings some great news for those people: A new quest has been added to the zone so you can finish your achievement.Chronicler To'kini in the quest hub Zim'Torga now offers the quest Tails Up, which as of this posting doesn't appear on either Wowhead or WoWDB yet. It's another of Blizzard's awkward humor quests, though luckily it's not poop related. Genitalia is the name of the game this time around. The Chronicler wants to bring some Zul'Drak wildlife back to Zandalar to study, but he specifically wants females from you. So you pump the beasts full of tranquilizers, do what you see in the picture to the right there, and you pray it's a female.
WoW Rookie: Metagaming for newbies
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.It's ok to admit it: WoW has sucked you in. You pop up WoW Insider in your browser during breaks at work. You replay your shining moment of glory from your Sunday night group's near-wipe over and over in your head as you sit in traffic. You drift off to sleep wishing you'd remembered to look up the proc rate on that new drop. You're hooked – and you're hungry for more knowledge, eager to pounce on all the insider information you sense is dangling somewhere just out of line of sight ... Welcome to metagaming. Researching your WoW game – your crunchy bits -- can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of playing World of Warcraft. While some players relish tackling new content with no preparations and no spoilers, others enjoy digging up encounter strategies and mapping out intricate leveling, gear and crafting plans. We'll introduce you to some basic resources for "theorycrafting" to start your New Year in WoW off with a (quantifiable) bang!
The Queue: New Year's Eve 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.New Year's Eve! Hooray! Are you doing anything special tonight? I totally am. I'm going to play an alt. Gasp! Shock! No seriously, I have no idea what I'll be doing. Right now though, I'm answering questions!JLocke asked...I know the next big patch to hit will have Uldar raid in it, but are there any other cool things attached to it that we know of?
The Queue: Sartharion and the Twilight Dragonflight
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.We're back after our little holiday vacation, and I hope yours was way more fun than mine! Let's avoid going into detail and becoming a rambling pack of scrooges, and get into the Q&A instead! Let's start with Sl0th's very good question... Why are we going to the Obsidian Sanctum? Sartharion doesn't seem to be doing anything except watching over eggs. He's not a direct threat to anyone like Onyxia or Nefarian were. He seems like just some random Black Dragon who's minding his own business, hanging out in the Black Dragonflight's area under Wyrmrest. Did I miss our rationale for wrecking up the place every week somewhere along the way?
