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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.
Barbara Walters names Steve Jobs most fascinating person of 2011
This probably isn't the most important honor Steve Jobs has ever picked up, but Barbara Walters has named Apple's co-founder as the most fascinating person of 2011, as reported by USA Today. Unfortunately the article doesn't actually tell us why, instead focusing reality show personalities, only mentioning Steve Jobs at the end. If nothing else, this shows just how profound the effect of Steve's life and legacy has been. Amid an expected outpouring of emotion from the Apple community, several artists and mainstream news outlets have also honored Jobs and his work. Yes, temporary celebrity may be granted to these reality show stars and their ilk, but Jobs and his genius have built up a following across all kinds of different communities, and that's one of the most magical things about this man and his life.
Newest producer's letter released for Star Wars Galaxies
Despite the layoffs and restructuring that has recently hit Sony Online Entertainment, Star Wars Galaxies is still going strong and improving. Producer Teesquared has chimed in for this month's producer's letter, outlining some of the planned additions to the game over the course of the next year. And what will that entail? Outlined in the letter are updates to the ongoing Galactic Civil War. Players can look forward to Galactic Civil War 2 being split into three updates to allow for faster release, with part one adding more objectives in space and three new fighter ships to help achieve those objectives. Part two will bring the war more directly to player-run cities and guilds, while part three will be a general balancing pass aimed at improving the game all around. While Teesquared spends a great deal of time looking back at the past year and outlining the changes that have been made to the game, it looks like Star Wars Galaxies players can look forward to a mix of system tweaks, PvP improvements, and content additions. Fans should take a look at the full letter for more details.
Spiritual Guidance: The shadow priest of 2010 ... and 2011
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. With the shadow-specced Fox Van Allen once again in control of Spiritual Guidance, it's time for some New Year's resolutions. That means three things: spending more time at the gym, eating only low-fat gnomes, and destroying his holy-specced nemesis Dawn Moore once and for all. Anyone who's read Spiritual Guidance knows I'm a sucker for nostalgia. And for someone who loves nostalgia, New Year's is the best time of the year. From Joel McHale to Joan Rivers, everyone gets a solid 30 minutes (21 minutes with commercials) to sum up an entire year in a series of tiny snippets. Why? Because it's a great way to recap a year. If you'll allow me a moment to reflect, here are a few of the things I learned in 2010: Running out of mana is not fun, no matter how much Blizzard tries to convince us otherwise. I talked about this a little around BlizzCon 2010, but it bears repeating: I have the most awesome fans. I'm talking about people like Leigh, who gave me a huge hug. And a T-shirt. And a subscription to her website. Blizzard developers don't really get shadow priests 100%, but that doesn't mean they don't love us. Don't believe that last point? Well then, today's column is for you. Shadow priests slowly evolved through 2010, transitioning from the proverbial red-headed step child of the Ulduar and ToTC days to something today that's -- dare I say -- pretty awesome. And there's some evidence that our best days aren't behind us. They're yet to come.
The Mog Log: The year that was
Last year around this time, people were saying that 2009 had been a terrible year and 2010 could only be an improvement. This year, people are saying the exact same thing. Maybe those of us in the MMO-sphere are just perpetual downers -- I don't know. It's certainly been a pretty significant year for players of Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV -- heck, it's been outright impossible for a Final Fantasy XIV player to exist before now, if you want to get hung up on pedantry. Whether or not you enjoyed the launch, of course, is another story altogether, one that Square-Enix itself doesn't seem to have closed the book on just yet. And over in Final Fantasy XI, we got an announcement that had been about seven years in the making, not to mention a plethora of new additions to the game -- some stunning, some lackluster. So let's take a look back at the year for both games, since the new one is starting right about, well, now. (OK, it's been started for a few hours, you get the idea.)
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.
Five MMOs that have gone MIA
Unlike Chuck Norris, who seems to hang on as an MMO meme with insane tenacity (perhaps it's that extra fist under his beard), there are a handful of MMOs that appear to have dropped off the radar in the last several months -- if not years. Admittedly, this was originally to be a top 10 list of missing MMOs, but in the last half of this year, several developers have seen fit to thwart our plans by actually releasing information about their games. Shock! Horror! Nevertheless, I've armed myself with an enormous cup of coffee and plundered the archives of Massively and general press releases for MMOGs that seem to have dropped off the radar. Are they still under development? Will we see some movement on them in 2011? Will it take a Chuck Norris-level feat-of-strength and all-around badassery to pull them back from the developmental abyss they appear to be in? Join me behind the break as I run down some of the MMOs we're still waiting for word on.
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 MMO Report: Super sacktacular edition
While Casey and the crew at G4TV gave us their thoughts on the games of 2010 in last week's MMO Report, this week they've decided to do something a little bit different. Well, that, and they've taken a few days off for the holidays. Yet rather than leaving us with an unsatisfying lack of funny for this week, Casey and company have decided instead to give us a video rounding up some of the best emails from the last year, as well as a special surprise award for the one they felt was funniest. If you'd like a moment of mirth, then join us after the break for this week's special year end sack-in-review edition of The MMO Report. Also, don't forget that you can catch it every Thursday on G4TV as well!
A video retrospective of Apple in 2010
This quick video retrospective of Apple's fares and fortunes in the past year is pretty good. From the introduction of the iPad to the new MacBook Air and the release of the Beatles on iTunes, this is a very nice little walk through 2010 from Apple's point of view. It's been one heck of a year for the company, too, and because of all the waves Apple sent out this year, it's been an interesting twelve months for the industries that surround it. Next year may be even more exciting, with the Mac App Store, likely a new iPad, and whatever else Steve Jobs and company dream up for us. Thanks, John W!
The Best of WoW Insider: April 2010
April was another busy month here. An increasing number of players finished Icecrown Citadel, and Cataclysm news sped from a trickle to ... well, I'm not sure I'd describe it as a gush, but we saw the earliest planned class changes and a series of announcements on altered mechanics. Oh, and we also briefly turned the site into Twilight Insider for April Fool's, and Blizzard debuted the famous "sparkle pony." News Eyonix leaving Blizzard A sad day for many of us who had waited religiously for his posts. Rage normalization in Cataclysm Hot on the heels of Rossi's argument that rage was broken (see past the cut), Blizzard announced an upcoming effort to "normalize rage" again for Cataclysm. I glossed the previous effort to normalize rage (in the beginning of The Burning Crusade) as follows: Blizzard: We're normalizing rage. Warriors: What does that mean? Blizzard: It means that normally, you won't have any. Warriors: ... oh. No no no no no no no no! Lil' XT was plagued by a bug that vastly increased the range at which you could hear his emotes and vocalizations. Blizzard wound up having to disable them before more players threw themselves off cliffs in an effort to escape. Blizzard bans 320,000 Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 players Blizzard started "cleaning house" (as Gregg termed it) on Battle.net in preparation for the release of Starcraft 2.
The best of WoW Insider: March 2010
With more players reaching the Lich King and "finishing" the expansion (although I wouldn't have suggested saying that to anyone toiling on the Icecrown Citadel drakes), the community turned a little more of its attention to the future. The community's appetite for all things Cataclysm was in no way sated by the trickle of expansion information in this period, and more and more of our writers began to speculate on possible changes. News Cataclysm stat and system changes revealed The first sign of things to come. Operation Gnomeregan: Transcript and details and Operation Echo Isles: Transcripts and details The Operation: Gnomeregan and Zalazane's Fall events were datamined long before they ever went live, and Gregg did the legwork to figure out what was going on. Goon Squad downs Tirion Fordring Really, Goon Squad? Really? Though, as Sacco observes, there's a term for this you might as well start getting used to hearing -- "emergent gameplay." WoW Insider's guide to WoW resources We decided to put together as comprehensive a listing of fan sites and WoW blogs as we could manage. World of Warcraft Patch 3.3.3 release notes Patch 3.3.3 went live, and with it, the "greed only" policy on frost orbs that Mat had written about the previous month. PUG players everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. Cataclysm earthquake mobs visible in Stormwind "Shaker" mobs were visible on several servers, a precursor to the earthquakes yet to come. Paragon scores world-first heroic Lich King It took almost two months for a guild to get the heroic 25-man Lich King down.
The Best of WoW Insider: January 2010
As with last year, our editors have asked us to put together a list of what we considered the year's best stories. As of now, there are 12 days until the end of the year, so we thought it'd be fun to do another end-of-year countdown showcasing a different month each day. We hope you'll enjoy a selection of WoW Insider's best and most insightful, funny, and thoughtful stories from 2010. We also took the liberty of including articles that best captured the zeitgeist of Wrath of the Lich King in its waning arc. January 2010 wasn't a quiet month for us. Players were just about a month into Icecrown Citadel, and the still-new dungeon finder was keeping even non-raiders thoroughly occupied. Patch 3.3 had been enthusiastically received ("Great patch or greatest patch?" as we asked at the time), but we were seeing the first glimmer of social changes wrought by the dungeon finder and continuing problems with account security. News Man forced to choose between his wife and his orc Really, this is the sort of philosophical conundrum that might have occupied Aristotle in an earlier age. Blizzard giving serious consideration to mandatory authenticators The number of hacked characters seemed to peak in late 2009/early 2010, and Blizzard had a few ways to deal with it -- including giving players the option of not actually restoring a hacked character. Alex wrote a counterpoint article with a few observations concerning the sheer scale of the problem. Beware of WoW Armory phishing scams Robin had spent much of the previous year battling scammers and had no intention of stopping. Bobby Kotick didn't think Blizzard was worth 7 million in 1996 Oh, how swiftly things change. Though, as commenters pointed out, he may not really have been wrong at the time. Help! My account has been hacked We received so many complaints about hacking, phishing, and scamming that Robin wrote a straightforward article on how to handle it if you were among the unfortunate victims. In 8 months, Blizzard wound up automating the process.
