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WRUP: Mike Sacco visits The Fourth Hour
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! Hey everyone! Welcome to What aRe yoU Playing! And, at the same time, welcome to episode three of The Fourth Hour! Today's The Fourth Hour takes us to Irvine, California (but still somehow still in The Fourth Hour studios, according to Michele), where we visit with Mike Sacco, smell his hair, and then kill him. You don't want to miss this one, because Michele and I may not be available to make another one for another 10 to 20 years (court case pending). After you're done subscribing to The Fourth Hour YouTube channel (cough cough, do it, cough), you can follow us after the break for a breathtaking round of WRUP! Oh boy!
Fox Kit added to Tol Barad vendors in next patch
Ever wanted one of those wily Fox Kit pets from Tol Barad? In order to get one, you have to endlessly grind the foxes on the main island -- well, until next patch, that is. Warcraft Pets reports that according to tweets by game designer Jonathan LeCraft, the Fox Kit will be placed on vendors in the upcoming pre-Mists of Pandaria patch. Included with the tweet was an image of our sly little friend on the Tol Barad vendors. Lest you think this will be an easy purchase, however, you may want to think again. Not only does the Fox Kit cost a whopping 200 tokens from either Hellscream's Reach or Baradin's Wardens, it also requires exalted reputation with whichever faction your side happens to be affiliated with. This late in the game, that shouldn't be an issue for most players -- but if you haven't tasted the delights of Tol Barad, you may want to get cracking now. Besides, who doesn't want a Fox Van Allen of their very own?
WRUP: On the subject of getting your own NPC
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! We were supposed to give it to you last month. We teased you about it for weeks. But no more teasing; no more waiting. Episode 2 of The Fourth Hour, staring actress Michele Morrow and yours truly, is finally available for viewing. We talk about getting an NPC in game, WoW-related birthday presents, and some other cool stuff. Also, Michele and I are pretty, so there's that. But what's that, you say? That's not enough for you? Well fine, jerk, I guess we'll also give you some "What aRe yoU Playing" action today. So follow us after the break and let us know what games you're going to be playing this weekend. And take a swing at our bonus question for the week, too: If you were to be honored with an in-game NPC, what would it be? What would your NPC do? Where would it be located?
WRUP: Fox Van Allen and Michele Morrow return to The Fourth Hour
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! About a month ago, Michele Morrow and I teased you with the first episode of The Fourth Hour, what we hoped would be a really epic, regular video series on gaming. And indeed, we still have plans for it. It's just that life happened in a very severe and intense way over at the Morrow household, and we had to put off taping for a while. (More about that later.) Thankfully, though, Michele has worked through the personal cataclysm, and we finally got a chance to sit down this week to tape a new episode of The Fourth Hour. It's still in editing, but we didn't want you to go without. That's why we're going to share with you our camera test that we ran as a warm-up. And if last time's outtakes were any indication, it's going to be just as good as the full episode -- if not better. This week's bonus question: Now that the Mists of Pandaria release date has been announced, it's time to decide. Are you buying a physical copy of the game, or are you going to just grab a digital download this year?
WRUP: Fox and Michele Morrow present: The Fourth Hour
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! Many of you know that I recently moved from Boston to Los Angeles. And now that I'm living in the entertainment capital of the world, it's time to kick up the Fox Van Allen experience a notch. After all, writing is cool, but all the really awesome people are making videos. So I hooked up with my friend Michele Morrow (writer! actress! Spirit Hood ambassador!) to create a new show, The Fourth Hour. And if it's cool with all of you, we'd like to premiere it here on WoW Insider. Like, right now. Why call it The Fourth Hour? It's an homage to the final hour of NBC's Today show, when serious journalism takes a sideline to the alcohol-fueled antics of Kathie Lee and Hoda. An unintentional homage, to be sure, but one filled with WoW, gaming talk, special guests, and pretty people you're evolutionarily predisposed to want to mate with. This week's special guest is a familiar face -- or at least familiar voice -- to all you WoW Insider folks: former writer Mat McCurley. You should totally subscribe to The Fourth Hour's YouTube channel. Then tell all your friends about it. Like it on Twitterbook. Write your congressman about it too, just in case. In addition to the pilot episode above, you can check out the outtakes video -- all the good stuff that just didn't fit the 10-minute format -- after the break. You can also peek into the lives of my fellow WoW Insider writers, since this is WRUP. Oh,and you can share with us exactly what you're doing in the World of Warcraft and what other games you're playing, too.
WRUP: Oops, Fox got lost edition
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! Ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid I'm taking over the column this week, as our own Fox Van Allen is lost in the middle of pre-Cataclysm Thousand Needles, far from his west coast destination. Do not fret over Fox's fate; he merely has to find a friendly local centaur to ask for directions, somewhere on the canyon floor. Wait ... those centaur aren't exactly friendly, are they? Well, maybe he can find Freewind Post somewhere along the line. While Fox figures his way out of a time/space/video game conundrum, we've got a way more important matter to attend to. What the heck is everyone playing this weekend?
The WoW Insider Show Live at PAX East
Are you heading to Boston for PAX East this year? Want to spend a little time hanging out with your best friends from WoW Insider? That's right! WoW Insider is doing a live version of the podcast at PAX East 2012. Featuring Mike Sacco, Mathew McCurley, Fox Van Allen, and editor-in-chief himself Alex Ziebart, we'll be doing a live panel with fun, questions, answers, prizes, and more. You don't want to miss out. Come see the WoW Insider Show Live! at PAX East in Boston: What: The WoW Insider Show Live! Podcast Where: Wyvern Theater, PAX East Boston 2012 When: Saturday, April 7, 10:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. The WoW Insider podcast comes to life as hosts Michael Sacco and Mathew McCurley, along with special guests, create a home away from Azeroth at PAX East. Join with the most popular World of Warcraft fansite for an hour of WoW news, views, laughter, and lots of WoW talk. There are more World of Warcraft fans at PAX than we can count, so come on down to talk all things WoW! Blizzard doesn't usually have a huge showing at gaming conventions like PAX Prime or PAX East, and with no BlizzCon happening in 2012, we've got to bring the community together ourselves. Come out and talk WoW -- you know everyone at PAX plays, anyway. Plus, prizes. Lots of prizes. Hope to see you all at PAX East!
WRUP: And they named him Baradin Fox Van Allen
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! Last month, I used WRUP to wish our very own Mat McCurley a happy birthday. Today, I'm using it to wish myself a happy birthday. I turn 24 on Sunday. Or maybe I turn 32. Or 27. I don't know ... I'm bad at math. I digress. The point is that many years ago, a child was born in the wilds of New Jersey, a child with the most awesome name on the planet: Fox Van Allen. All of a sudden, though, I have some competition for my throne. It seems that last month, two Skyrim-loving parents named their child Dovahkiin. (The name translates to Dragonborn in a special fake dragon language that programmer nerds made up.) That said, this week's WRUP asks: If you had to name your baby after a character in World of Warcraft, what would you name him or her?
Choose My Adventure: Shiny new adventurers
Choose the adventures of the WoW Insider staff or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H). A priest, a druid and a paladin walk into a bar ... and announce that the votes have been tallied: Josh Myers will be playing Clergelam, the female Goblin priest, and will play on Thursday at 12 p.m. EDT (9 a.m. PDT, 10 a.m. server time). Joe Perez will be a male Troll druid and will play on Sunday at 4 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. PDT, 2 p.m. server time). Fox Van Allen will be playing Foxlight the Shirtless Pally by questing, dungeoning and/or PVPing on Friday at 7 p.m. EDT (4 p.m. PDT, 5 p.m. server time). Roblinator the Goblin shaman will continue to play on Wednesday at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT, 11 a.m. server time). More polls and a story are after the break.
Choose My Adventure: Welcome our new adventurers!
Choose the adventures of the WoW Insider staff or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H). Joining Roblinator for future adventures in these pages will be Josh Myers, Joe Perez and Fox Van Allen. Yes, it's the return of Foxlight, the shirtless pally. Please keep the swooning to a minimum. Josh and Joe will be having you choose everything about their characters, but Foxlight just needs to know how and where to adventure. Roblinator will continue her shamanating ways, with your help and direction. We'll be discontinuing the stream, but not the fun! We will be posting the schedules for each adventurer so that you can join them on their travels, and of course we will have polls and stories. Join us after the break to vote on what you'd like for our new adventurers.
About the Bloggers: Fox Van Allen
About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. Meet other staffers, both past-day and present, in earlier About the Bloggers posts. This week, we meet and shake hands with the extraordinarily popular (Editor's note: Fox wrote that) Fox Van Allen. We then immediately reach for the hand sanitizer, because we have a pretty good idea where his hands have been. What do you do for WoW Insider? Fox Van Allen, a blood elf-esque man who frequently converses about himself in the third person, was officially hired as a contributing editor nearly two years ago. But he's not just a contributor -- he's so much more. Fox is the wit and ego of WoW Insider. Stunningly handsome, incredibly intelligent, and chaotically neutral, Fox is best known for his work as the columnist behind the shadow priest edition of the Spiritual Guidance column. He has also filled in for a number of other columnists, including brief stints working The Queue and Gold Capped columns. He is universally loved by all, even by those who hate him. He also compiles the WRUP (What aRe yoU Playing?) column every Saturday Friday, but he doesn't like to talk about that much. Mostly since it's 90% filler. Entertaining filler, though! You should read it!
Gold Capped: How to reach the gold cap
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! Don't mind the intrusion, folks. It's me, Fox Van Allen. I'm filling in for Basil this week while he deals with the parasite that recently burst from his wife's stomach. (That's what those baby things are, right? Am I recalling seventh grade health class correctly?) If any of you have been following me on Twitter (and if you haven't, for shame), you may already know that back in March, Heartbourne of Lore Hound challenged me to a race to the 999,999g 99s 99c gold cap. I immediately accepted. After coming up with some basic rules (no gold buying, no server transfers, no "borrowing," no interfering with each other's auctions), the race to a million was on. During the contest, I was quiet about my gold-making activities -- I didn't want to tip off the competition. But now that the contest officially ended this past week, I'm free to talk about what happened. And so, my friends, what follows is the tale of how someone with virtually no gold-making knowledge went from next to nothing at the start of Cataclysm to, as of June 10, over one million gold.
WRUP: Twitter, sparklelions, and Nutsy Bolts, oh my
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game -- and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! Ever wonder what your favorite WoW Insider writers are up to when they're not writing for WoW Insider? Well, thanks to the technological marvel known as Twitter, you can now e-stalk our writers and absorb our infinite wisdom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! (That's right, even on Fridays.) What did you miss this week by not following your favorite WoW Insider editors? Well, for starters, yours truly talked about a new Dispersion glitch and lustful cries of "zug zug;" Mat McCurley bragged about his prescience on the Winged Guardian mount and spammed more pictures of his cat; Tyler Caraway (who will heretofore be named "little nugget") surrendered to his crippling devotion to Fox Van Allen and begged to be "taken;" Mike Sacco created a WoW-themed game of Nutsy Bolts and invited all his followers to join in; and Alex Ziebart played some Atari 2600, gave away a loot card, and then freaked the hell out over a bug. All in a week's work for the WoW Insider crew. What will happen next week? You should follow us all and find out. Whatever we say, it's likely to be entertaining, if only because we don't have paid editors on hand in our personal lives to stop us from saying something really, really stupid. But enough shameless plugging of ourselves on Twitter -- it's time to get back to shameless plugging of ourselves on WoW Insider via WRUP. This week's bonus question lands our editors in a bit of déjà-vu-like controversy: "What do you think of the winged lion (Winged Guardian) mount? If you hated the sparklepony, do you hate this? Or have you come to terms with microtransactions?"
Spiritual Guidance: BlizzCon players tell about their first priests
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for disc and holy priests. This week, Dawn and her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen, faced off at the WoW Insider reader meetup in a battle of quips, and it would seem that Dawn came away victorious. Originally this weekend, I had planned on writing a direct address to Blizzard concerning holy priest healing and mana in beta raids. The topic has been a large area of concern for priests on the forums lately, and I thought I should give the discussion a little boost by addressing it in my column. However, I am currently at BlizzCon 2010, and I happened to get the opportunity to talk to Ghostcrawler (lead systems design) in person for a few minutes. During that time, I relayed the general message of our problem (HPS is jank, mana needs work) and figured I'd give the Blizzard developers a week to attend to it before assailing them with complaints. Until then, I ask that my fellow priests not panic for a little while longer. In the words of Toby, who is pictured above, "Keep the faith!" By the way, I'm starting a donation fund for BlizzCon 2011 to buy Ghostcrawler a fedora. Ghostcrawler would look awesome in a fedora. Anyway, to tide you guys over until then, I figured this week I would attempt to entertain you all. At first, I thought I might try to be humorous, and then I remembered I'm not funny. (A priest walks into a bar and ... yeah, I got nothing.) So instead, I've decided to go with priest story time. Hit the jump to see what I mean.
15 Minutes of Fame: Life as a WoW Insider writer
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. What's it like when World of Warcraft becomes your job? This week, 15 Minutes of Fame zooms in for the second half of a behind-the-scenes interview with a handful of WoW Insider staffers. We'll muse over what it's like to write about WoW for work, what it's like to play WoW for work, the rewards and frustrations of writing for a living -- and the No. 1 question we get asked by readers: How can someone get started writing professionally about gaming? Zach Yonzon pens The Art of War(craft) every week and creates many of the graphic images you see on our home page, guides and posts. Matthew Rossi, one of the most seasoned hands on the WoW Insider crew, is our resident warrior expert who also writes about game lore and general news. Michael Sacco, a senior editor, started writing at WoW Insider after working at Blizzard itself. Alex Ziebart started out as a weekend blogger and is now a senior editor. Fox Van Allen joined WoW Insider early this year and writes the shadow priest portion of our priest column. Lisa Poisso (that's me) started out writing the professions column three years ago and now works behind the scenes as an editor and turning out several weekly columns.
The Queue: The one where Fox takes over
Welcome to your daily dose of The Queue. With Mike, Alex and Adam busy, their precious Queue was left unguarded and captured by Fox Van Allen. All members of the Van Allen faction shall enjoy a 5% buff to damage and experience for the 24-hour duration, and Spirit Shards may now be collected. Before I start the queue in earnest, I shall innaugurate the first ever Fox Van Allen edition of The Queue with a question I want to clear up once and for all: "Is Fox Van Allen your real name?" Yes. That's totally my name. For serious. We all blog under our real names here, and I'm no different. The ladies at Panera never believe me, though. "Well, you know, people sometimes give us fake names." They think they're so hot just because they have, like, six different kinds of soup. Well you know what? They're not. They're not hot at all. Hmph. hp1 asked: My understanding is that there won't be a new neutral city in Cata, a la Shattrath or Dalaran. So where will all the lvl 85's be hanging out? I didn't play in Vanilla but heard most Horde "lived" in Undercity because of it's proximity to Scholo, Strat and to a lesser extent Blackrock. Do you think we'll all be parked in faction-specific cities or someplace new?
15 Minutes of Fame: Behind the scenes at WoW Insider
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. Who are the people who write all this stuff, and how did they come to start writing about World of Warcraft every day? Being a WoW Insider writer is admittedly a pretty cool gig. Readers ask us what it's like on a regular basis. Giving a single, accurate answer, however, would be a mighty difficult proposition. Some of us are full-timers, while others pen a single column each week; some of us spend most of our time behind the scenes, and some remain constantly before readers' eyes. Despite being scattered all across the world, we come together every day (well, it's more like a waxing and waning, 24-hour cycle) in the WoW Insider chat room (war room? newsroom? Pandora's box of geekery and chaos?) when we're working. Being on the WoW Insider team is a little like being part of an incredibly tight guild, whose members manage to share not only World of Warcraft and many other interests in common but also their workdays, as well. Although we do have an old, outdated series knocking around somewhere that looks at members of the blogging team, we thought it was about time to give you a fresh look behind the scenes at WoW Insider. Without further ado, let's meet a tiny sampling of the people who work at WoW Insider: Zach Yonzon pens The Art of War(craft) every week and creates many of the graphic images you see on our home page, guides and posts. Matthew Rossi, one of the most seasoned hands on the WoW.com crew, is our resident warrior expert who also writes about game lore and general news. Michael Sacco, a senior editor, started writing at WoW.com after working at Blizzard itself. Alex Ziebart started out as a weekend blogger and is now a senior editor. Fox Van Allen joined WoW.com early this year and writes the shadow priest portion of our priest column. Lisa Poisso (that's me) started out writing the professions column three years ago and now works behind the scenes as an editor and turning out several weekly columns.
Spiritual Guidance: Holy? Disc? We're all priests
Every Sunday (and the occasional weekday) Dawn Moore reinvents what "smitelol" means to her shadowy cohort, Fox Van Allen, by busting down a door with penance lasers and raising holy hell to a Tarantino soundtrack. In the column Spiritual Guidance she offers advice to holy and discipline priests on how to wield the holy light, with style. When I first started raiding, it was in late Burning Crusade. At the time I fancied myself a PvPer, shying away from raids due to attunements, and the long gear climb I'd have to perform in order to catch up with friends doing tier 5 content. Despite this, sometime during tier 6, a friend of mine convinced me to come along to a raid. How he convinced the raid leader though, I can't imagine. I remember standing there in my resilience gear, surrounded by players in their various shiny gear sets, and asking myself over and over, "what am I doing here?" I sheepishly put my talents into the holy tree, and tried to arrange my bars to accommodate the spells I hadn't cast in months. I was out of my element. And then I saw Baba. She was beautiful.
