Amanda-Miller
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WoW Insider Arena team thoughts and tinkers
Let's get one thing out of the way: this isn't an epeen-stroking session. When you go into the Tournament Realm joining a 1382 team that went 3-11 on its debut week, you have to set your expectations right. Aside from Amanda Dean, or Mandy, who's professed an enjoyment for Arenas, the WoW Insider team is composed of people who don't have extensive Arena experience. We also have Adam Holisky, who doesn't consider PvP to be the 'real' game (whatever that means), and Amanda Miller, who covers our Sunday Morning Funnies. I do a fair amount of Arena on live myself and our team is rated enough to garner us Season 3 swag every two weeks or so. You do the math. But here's the thing -- Arena is a team game. Like every team sport, it relies on synergy, teamwork, and communication. The top players in the world know this, and team leaders replace underperforming members regularly with a dose of nerd rage for good measure. That's just competitive Arena play.On the other hand, WoW Insider's venture into the Tournament Realm is more of a journalistic exercise than anything else. For one thing, I'm not even eligible to actually participate in the actual tournament because my country isn't on the list, so my expectations of going far in this tournament is nil. To be perfectly honest, that's a good thing. Ironically, I feel a lot less pressure to perform on the TR with the WoW Insider Team than I do on live. In fact, I even ventured to play as a Retribution Paladin only because I can. I had initially created a Restoration Shaman named Insiderzach but since Mandy was running with a Restoration Druid, I thought I could have a little fun with running double melee with Adam so I made a Paladin. After all, it is my favorite class.
Arena Tournament: Tales from day one
Last night, the WoW Insider arena team stepped into battle for the first time on the arena tournament realms, and it was immediately apparent that things were going to be quite different from our experiences on the tournament test realms. For starters, there were way fewer people. I also noticed that, contrary to my expectations that everyone shelling out an extra $20 to play here would be a hardcore arena-goer, there were many people on just to have fun. General chat was full of people who didn't know where to go, how to allocate their talent points, and even people who hadn't formed teams yet!Still, despite the fact the vendor areas had a drastically reduced population, the queues were amazingly short, as Adam points out. Often, I was reading that my team had joined the queue at the same time I was clicking to enter the battle.
WoW Insider at the Stress Test, Part Deux
What? Stress Test, Part DeuxWho? Blizzard CMs, GMs, Devs, and the WoW Insider Arena TeamWhere? Tournament Test ServerWhen? Tonight at 5:00 p.m to 8:00 p.m, PST Got all that? Good. Drysc announced last night Blizzard will be holding another round of stress testing on the tournament test realm. Why? Because they want more attention. I for one, am going to give it to them. In fact, WoW Insider will again have a crew on the server covering all the action. We'll all be hopping around on toons named like "Insideradam", "Insideralex", and "Insiderzach". So be sure to drop by and say hello again!If you missed the last stress test, it was a ton of fun. We have a huge gallery of screen shots of just about everything you could want to see. Blizzard devs were there handing out mounts, chicken and gnome costumes, and even teleporting the WoW Insider staff away for some quite alone time with a Brutallus disguised Englewood.If you're lucky enough to see us, just give us a /wave or a /hug and we'll try to snap a screen shot with you for our upcoming Stress Test Part Deux gallery. We'll also be live blogging all the activity on the TTR during the event, so even if you can't make it - you can still see what's happening. Our live blog is also a really good place to check and see if the server is up or down.See you on all over there!
Manda's tales from the TTR: Stress edition
Sunday's Tournament Test Realm stress test was, in my opinion, a huge success. Despite the lag, the occasional crash or kick, and a one-hour maintenance downtime, the server held up quite well considering just how many people were bombing around on it. After maintenance, the lag improved quite a bit, and I'm guessing that Blizzard learned a fair amount that will help them to design the arena tournament realm.Of course, interaction with the GMs, fighting spawned bosses dropping orange epics, being polymorphed into all sorts of things, receiving rare mounts, and reading through /general, /say, and /yell, not to mention tells, were the real highlights from yesterday. While Alex has already given a fairly detailed account of our adventures, I have some stories of my own to tell. %Gallery-18020%
WoW Insider TTR team is ready for battle!
WoW Insider's Arena Team is getting ready for battle right now! Come on over to the Tournament Test Realm (TTR) and join us and thousands of other players as we prepare for battle against each other and even Blizzard's CMs and Devs!If you're looking for us, we're playing under the banner "WoW Insider". My name is "insideradam", Alex Ziebart's name is "insideralex", and Amanda Miller's name is "Vehn". We'll be joined by other writers throughout the stress test. I'll also be live blogging the event in about 30 minutes from now.If you haven't gotten on the TTR yet, I'd hurry up and do so soon. The server is stable right now, and that's a good sign. There is still delay when clicking through to buy everything from the vendors, but that's been a problem all week.Any experiences on the TTR to report on already? Leave a comment and let us know!
Join WoW Insider on the TTR tomorrow
The Tournament Test Realm outside of the Orc starting area. We've been covering the Tournament Test Realm (TTR) lately, especially the stress test tomorrow between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. PST. It's going to be a lot of fun I'm sure – assuming the server can stay up. And the best part about it all?WoW Insider will be there in force! The TTR team from WoW Insider will include folks like myself, Amanda Dean, Amanda Miller, Alex Ziebart, and other writers. We'll be there trying to be king of the hill during the arena tests. Our team name is "WoW Insider" (creative, huh?) and we'll be fighting FOR the Horde.So grab your sword and fight us Horde! Come on over and join the fun - and if you happen to hit us in battle, don't forget to take a screen shot of us standing victoriously over your dead bodies! ;-)
About the Bloggers: Amanda Miller
About the Bloggers is a new series on WoW Insider. Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better.What's your main right now?Lately I've been switching between my level 70 Beast Mastery orc hunter (male), and my 50-something blood elf Holy paladin (female). For the Horde, or Glory to the Alliance?I'm definitely a Horde girl, although in the future I would like to level my Alliance characters.Favorite thing to do in Azeroth?I used to be heavily into fishing, but lately I've been spending most of my time in battlegrounds.
