The unique content on Engadget is a result of skilled collaboration between writers and editors with broad journalistic, academic, and practical expertise.
In pursuit of our mission to provide accurate and ethical coverage, the Engadget editorial team consistently fact-checks and reviews site content to provide readers with an informative, entertaining, and engaging experience. Click here for more information on our editorial process.
AFK Gamer has posted about his first hand experience with the on-going war efforts on the Medivh server. He goes in-depth with screenshots on how players were acting. He also talks about how the GMs were handling the whole situation. Good stuff. Be sure to check out his follow-up and his flickr pools.Do you think Blizzard will wise up and put some measure in to prevent issues like the Medivh server had, for future world events?
Read MoreMore news from the holiday contest front...The holiday screenshot contest has come to an end and Blizzard has announced the winners. This was another shining example of creativity within the community, I can't believe how funny some of the screenshots are! Such irony with the BWL and Molten Core screenshots with snowmen and snowballs.Don't forget to take a gander at the honorable mentions, there are some funny ones.
Read MoreThis is slightly older news but worth posting.Blizzard announced the contest winner for their holiday cookie contest. They had some amazing entries, I am continually confounded by the amount of effort and skill some of the players put into these contests. The winning cookie (Welcome to World of Fondant!) has some amazingly detailed icing work on it.I would highly recommend checking out the winners and the honorable mentions. Just remember to not go hungry, lest you find yourself craving cookies!
Read MoreSome confusion has surfed on the forums about what will be in patch 1.10. Caydiem has come out to set everyone straight, no new instances in 1.10! I guess someone confused the fact that a new tier (dubbed 0.5) armor set is being released in the next patch, so they assumed that meant a new place to farm for that new set.What other 1.10 patch rumors are you guys hearing?
Read MoreTall, small, round or skinny - we all look and feel differently about things. In particular, the WoW Insider staff has been debating on what is/isn't cheating. Chris' recent post sparked the behind the scenes debate. While some of us do feel that selling an account is one form of cheating, others don't. Some consider gold buying ok, some don't. Our differing views and opinions are something that we can offer because we have a team of bloggers. While we don't all agree on the definition, we hope you can understand that we are all individuals writing for the blog.Now on to my view :). I do think selling a character is cheating, as is buying a character/gold/ or anything for that matter. I do believe that Blizzard should take an approach similar to Sony and offer up realms where they can buy gold and items in a sanctioned environment. If people want to spend money, why shouldn't blizzard get a cut? Let them take that cut and hire more developers to create content! My ideas tend to be liberal (or flaming liberal as my father says) but I think they could be beneficial. Your views?
Read MoreTired of the stutter issues that came with 1.9.1? Blizzard release patch 1.9.2 today, expressly to fix this issue... YAY! Go blue!I look forward to going home and not seeing jumping people in IF/Org anymore - it was messing with my mind. Seeing the stutter makes me constantly check my pings or makes me wonder about my router...
Read MoreAre you a big fan of WoW fiction and world lore? I ran across this little gem while surfing the warlock forums (*cough* I know I spend all my time there) and I wanted to share this with you. I combed the thread for all the stories until I made it to the post where he noted he was making a blog for the stories. This guy is pumping out some grade A material, imo.We have been kicking around the idea of doing something like this for WoWInsider... A weekly piece of fiction about our characters expliots on Akama. Would you guys be interested in reading that?
Read MoreIt has been a little over a week and I have been grinding my warlock towards getting my mount... Since I am purely spec'd for affliction right now, I haven't seen much downside (personally) from the recent patch. I have seen a lot of whining about the CoS/CoE nerf on the forums. Most of the whining is geared towards the fact that CoS is only useful in groups/raids now because the damage buff is easily overrun by CoA when running solo. Any warlocks with real numbers done a comparison? The other item I wanted to discuss was the addition of the soul shard bag - I have mixed feelings about them. I am running with 19-20 shards on me, average now. Even thought I have more shards, I find I still use them up at the same old rate when running solo (I don't have shadowburn, yet). I have seen a lot of flak about the cost of the bags and the fact that they should have been a quest reward, at least for the low end bag. Ecksvee has started an effort on Uldum to take donated components and money to make free bags for everyone - a brilliant idea! What are your thoughts on the shard bags? Was 1.9 a buff or nerf for warlocks, or do you not care? :)
Read More[Ed. note: This article was contributed by Ugkul]Want to know what the various items to turn in for Ahn'Qiraj are (check out the list below)? Predictably, prices for these items are rapidly rising in the AH. The first time you turn something in, you obtain ten commendation signets that can be turned in for a reputation boost as well as a Ahn'Qiraj War Effort Supplies crate that typically contains a scroll and a green/blue item; subsequent turnins only net one commendation signet and one supply crate. Ten commendation signets net a 75 point reputation bonus, which means you could net a 1125 reputation bonus just for turning in one of each!Alliance and Horde have different turnin items and quantites. The list is below:Alliance:Mining90000 Copper Bar28000 Iron Bar24000 Thorium BarHerbs33000 Stranglekelp26000 Purple Lotus20000 Arthas' TearsLeather180000 Light Leather110000 Medium Leather80000 Thick LeatherFirst Aid800000 Linen bandaids600000 Silk bandaids400000 Runecloth bandaidsCooking14000 Rainbow Fin Albacore20000 Roast Raptor17000 Spotted YellowtailHorde:Mining90000 Copper Bar22000 Tin Bar18000 Mithril BarHerbs96000 Peacebloom19000 Firebloom26000 Purple LotusLeather80000 Thick Leather60000 Heavy Leather60000 Rugged LeatherFirst Aid250000 Wool bandaids250000 Mageweave bandaids400000 Runecloth bandaidsCooking10000 Lean Wolf Steak17000 Spotted Yellowtail10000 Baked SalmonDefinitely an interesting way to get everyone involved in a world event, but we feel the supply crate rewards might be too generous.Farmers are taking notice and AH item prices are rapidly rising, as well as shortages in other areas, such as bags, since one can obtain a better price selling off the leather at the AH then from the final item.
Read MoreYes, we all get a little borked off when it comes to major patch time and our mods quit working... This is just a small frustration compared to what some of the EU gamers have gone through since patching started yesterday. According to this thread over on the EU forums, there was a network disconnect while the patch script was running. I am sure they didn't realize that was the network cord they unplugged at first :P.One user commented that the server downtime will totaled around 37 hours, once they got them back up. I also know that Jennie had a few alts on one of the servers. I feel for everyone, I know I would go nuts if bloodhoof went down that long!
Read MoreAre you a heavy custom UI type of player? I know I am, and the day is patch is release is probably one of the most frustrating days. I usually end up with all the major addons needing new updates before they will work right. Here are a few things I found to be broken in some form: Bibmod (unusable), Titan Panel (now follows the UI scaling), and Discord Unit Frames (same). Oddly enough, auctioneer still seems to work, which really surprises me!Which UI mods do you use, and are they broken with the new patch? I will update this post with a running list of mods.
Read MoreSomething Awful has gone and written a lovely summary of all the 1.9 patch changes. Of course they have done so in their own special way, which is quite an amusing read.I have been very annoyed with the Shaman class as of late (playing a 36 warlock in WSG) so I found the little quip about shamans funny: "Did you guys see what we did to Paladins? If you guys keep up your complaints about aggro management and unrefined talent trees, we will be forced to enact such changes on you as well. This is your only warning." They follow that comment with another telling warlocks to read the shaman notes. Funny stuff!Pity the paladins, they got trashed ;)
Read MoreWell, another year has come and gone. From a warcraft perspective we have seen a lot of changes come out with all the patches. Just think for a second, we didn't even have the honor system or Battlegrounds. The developers put together a special holiday treat for you this New Years Eve/Day... There are fireworks and brew for everyone to enjoy in three major cities; Stormwind, Thunderbluff, and Booty Bay. Be sure to blow a kiss to some of the holiday revelers, there should be a lot more of them around the aforementioned capital cities. Hopefully with the New Year here, we can expect the patch within a few days to a week - according to an official blizzard response on the forums. Then we can all enjoy the new AQ raid content! I leave you with this parting question - What has been your favorite addition to the game over this past year?
Read MoreHave you found the Shiny Dinglehopper? Have you seen the Sea Giant fart and then try to pop the bubbles? Do you have a pet chicken yet?If you think I am crazy and I have no clue what I am talking about, I would advise you to check out the WoW easter egg text file!I would highly recommend combing through the file a bit; there is some funny stuff in there! I know I will be running the chicken quest soon - stay tuned for screenshots...[Edit: As GameFAQs doesn't allow direct linking, here's a link to a list of FAQ's including the WoW easer eggs one. You can get there from here.]
Read MoreWe are always on the lookout for new online WoW tools to share with you. Today we ran across another online talent calculator, YAOTC.The really nice thing about this calculator is that it can be embedded right into any website, they just ask for a little props on the page. With a little html/css knowledge, you can have this baby chugging along on your guild/fanboy website! They even have a page that explains how to style it, and they give a few examples.I can't wait to see if they guys over at WoWHead.com come out with even more great tools![From tipster Silvertusk]
Read MoreDo racial abilities play a part in choosing your race? Does the home city factor into your choice? Or does it come down to pure aesthetics when you are choosing?I know some races offer preferential abilities for certain classes, for example; gnomes gain a 5% bonus to intellect, which is desirable for mages and warlocks. Orcs on the other hand, gain a passive pet bonus and an active melee talent, more suited to hunters and warriors, in my opinion.Perhaps the choice of faces or skin color plays a part? Maybe it is the wicked hair choices offered to the undead that draws your eye...Which race do you prefer? What plays a factor in your choice?[Edit: Thx Brandon for the spelling correction :) ]
Read MoreYou still suck? I still get a chuckle when I see this post over in the forums. People are putting up some of the funny things they have seen GMs say to them. It is nice to see that some of the GMs can provide a little humor and brevity to what is most likely a frustrating situation for a player. I have yet to even see a GM in the game, even though I have opened several tickets on Bloodhoof. Have you guys had any funny GM experiences?
Read MoreI must say, in all my forum travels, this is one of the more educated posts I have read in a long time. It is a well thought out piece of writing that goes over epics and their high damage output.The post goes in to detail as to why tier-2 epics are overpowered from a damage output perspective and not enough damage absorption. The crazy part is when he compares a blue equipped mage versus a blue equipped hunter, or the same pair wearing MC epics - the mage can crit for 38% and 42% of the hunter's life, respectively. A BWL equipped mage can score a 71% crit on the hunter's hp. That is insane!The poster also goes on to mention various ideas to bring things back into balance, which I applaud him for! Nothing will get a problem solved faster than having a solution attached to the complaint. While I think this isn't something we will see fixed quickly, hopefully Blizzard will take notice before they release the expansion (one of the solutions).I also liked the idea of changing spell resistance to be more of a partial blockage of the damage (similar to AC and melee damage) rather than an all or nothing deal.Kudos to Arash for such a fine post.
Read MoreSo, are you like me? Avoiding your family by playing WoW? Gonna get in your post-turkey MC raid?Well, raiding is fun for some, but I have been jonesing for some BG action the last week or so. The last three nights I have tried to get into WSG for some CTF action, but I have been left waiting well over an hour each time - I keep getting fed up with the waiting and end up logging out of the game. I figured today would be a good day since most people are off for the day... WRONG! I ended up waiting for over 2 hours when I finally gave up.The hope is that the new queue system will help resolve some of the wait time issues, by allowing you to join all three queues at once. I know others have mentioned possibly allowing cross-server queue to even things out and allow for smaller queue wait times.Why are holidays slower in BG and what can be done about it?
Read MoreJonesing for that rare murloc pet? Wish there was some kind of LAN based competition to compete in for WoW? Guess what... There is!Everlan is a LANparty in Denver CO that hosts 500-600 gamers and they are being sponsored by Blizzard. They have a whole slew of WoW competition lined up for party goers, including scavenger hunts, leveling races, and other in-game competitions. Makes me wish I lived in Denver :P.Kudos to these guys, I know it was a challange to throw a 120 person party, so I tip my hat to them for their 500-600 gamers!
Read MoreBlizzard has been in crack down mode, it seems. The mighty hammer of blue has shattered 18,000 accounts in the past 3 months. While this is drawing somepositive response in the forums, there is still backlash in the community about gold farming/teleporting.Blizzard does mention that most of the tips came from in-game reports to GMs or emails to hacks@blizzard.com. I know a lot of people are frustrated that they don't get feedback from the reports, but Blizzard is hard at work running down all the cheaters! Keep the reports rolling in guys.What other ideas do you have to help minimize the cheating issues?
Read MoreIt is that time again! Step right up boys and girls and see what the amazing blue has in store for you... They go over tons of stuff this week, from the age old debate of life after 60 to the new mage water spell tweaks. I know Blizzard comes under a lot of flack for their communication methods sometimes, but there is some cool stuff to sift through. I think they are really starting to move things in the right direction as far as customer feedback goes. Give ole' blue a chance, will ya?Oh, and check out this nifty post about INT levels and how crit% is affected by it - good food for thought.
Read MoreCasual vs. Hardcore, Raider vs. Solo, etc etc. If you have been combing through the forums daily with me, I am sure you see the same threads about how blizzard is ignoring the soloing population of Warcraft. Well, Blizzard is silent no longer; they have released a small statement in the forums to address everyone making the comments. To summarize for you, they are working on it! Development and testing takes time, based on the number of developers they have. Blizzard is also still experimenting with ways to fix problems such as rewarding questing at level 60 or stat progression for non-raiders. I am sure we each have in-depth opinions on how they can fix it, so feel free to drop them here once the comment system is back up. You can also post your comments to blizzard in this new thread.
Read MoreIn my daily search for WoW material for all of you, I stumbled across one of the ultimate stores of lore material! It appears that dedicated warcraft lore fans have gone to extreme lengths to give us this great reference. You can find everything in there, from the Dalaran mages to the Draenei. I would highly recommend taking a gander through it all, I have learned a ton just clicking on a few links. The wiki even houses material about the upcoming expansion, including the rumors, so comb through and see what you can find - I have started to firm up my opinion based on info in the wiki! If I were a bettin man, I would look for the race to be Draenei for sure...
Read MoreIt would seem that there is some trouble over at the WoW headquarters! They have over 30 servers that are down for ISP maintenance. I hate when they go down... Although, I will say that it seems rare that a bunch of servers go down outside of the normal weekly maintenance timeframe. What do you guys do during downtime?
Read MoreWe have our minions scouring the web and whipping up code for new WoW content for you to enjoy! One of them ran across this cool new map tool. It is awesome because it allows you to take map coordinates and place points on the map, right from a web page. Mods like map notes allow you to do similar things in the game, but it is awesome to see this crossing over out of the game. It is also excellent to see a new mapping tool available for use - it is always nice to pull up a map when you are discussing the latest town raid with your coworkers :).Thanks to Stevo for the heads up.
Read MoreAs you can see, I am spread across three servers... I have 3 horde characters on the two PvP servers, and 4 alliance characters on the Normal server. I would love to be able to combine my horde characters onto the Akama server, but Blizzard still isn't offering open server transfers.The game has been out over a year now, why isn't this a feature already in place? Blizzard keeps saying they are going to allow it at some point, but when? The $40 proposed fee sounds fair to me, since it is a one time shot and they do want to limit how often it happens - but the $40 should cover the ability to move all your characters on your account at least once. If they charge $40 for each character move, that would total to $200 if I wanted to move all my characters to our new WoWInsider guild servers!How many servers are you spread across?
Read More