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WoW Insider Show Episode 70: The year that was
It was a great time as always this weekend on our podcast -- Dan O'Halloran, Adam Holisky and I all went on the virtual airwaves to talk about WoW's extra half-million players, answer lots of reader emails, and run through the top 10 posts of 2008 (along with a little insight on how they came together and what was really popular on the site this year). It was a lot of fun to make, and hopefully you'll enjoy listening to it as well.Plus, this show was our first with a fanmade intro -- big thanks to Mialoha on Hydraxis for stepping up and being first. We've got a few more in the buffer, but if you'd like to make an intro to the show (and do a shoutout to your guild, toss in a plug for your own website, or just say something funny about Turpster), all you need to do is record an mp3, and email it to our email address: theshow@wow.com. That is, of course, also the place to send any questions, comments, or what have you for us.It was great to put a capper on 2008, but we'll be back next Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern over on Ustream as always (and the T tells me he'll be back) with yet another 52 shows about WoW Insider and World of Warcraft. See you then.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Year-ending WoW Insider Show live this afternoon
Our podcast will be live once again this afternoon (3:30 pm eastern), and since it's been a relatively slow week with the holiday and all, we're going to spend today's show looking back at the top 10 posts of the last year. Co-lead Dan O'Halloran will be on board with us, as will Adam Holisky, and unless Turpster is still in too much of a haze from his holiday festivities last week, he should be around as well. Should be a great time.If you want to join us, feel free -- we'll be live over on Ustream at 3:30pm Eastern (and I've also embedded the feed right after the break on this very post). As always, you can email us as well, at theshow@wow.com (and that's also the place to send your intros, as we said on last week's show -- we've gotten a few amazing ones already, so you'll hear our first one on the show today). And if you do stop by the show, make sure to save some time to stay afterwards, as we've been doing a quick, exclusive aftershow after we stop the usual recordings.We'll see you this afternoon for the very last WoW Insider Show of 2008, and a look at the most popular posts on the site over the last 12 months.
Preparing for Wrath: Were you prepared?
Illidan screamed "You are not prepared!" to us all in the Burning Crusade. It turned out that most of us were, especially after the release of patch 3.0.2. Over the past eight days Allison, Zach, and I have looked at what it takes to get you prepared for Wrath of the Lich King.Even if you haven't been preparing every day for the past week or so, you can still get caught up quickly and easily. In each of our guides we give you some tips that only take about 20 minutes or so in game. Everything from cleaning out your bank, to stocking up on food, potions, and stones, to making sure that you have enough money for your travels.Take a look back at our preparation guide. Are you prepared? Preparing for Wrath Day 8 – Your bank Preparing for Wrath Day 7 – Eat, drink, and be merry Preparing for Wrath Day 6 – Have a nice night with some pots, stones, and oils Preparing for Wrath Day 5 – Dungeoneering and you Preparing for Wrath Day 4 – Addons for leveling Preparing for Wrath Day 3 – PvP like there's no tomorrow Preparing for Wrath Day 2 – The dying wallet Preparing for Wrath Day 1 – Get your act together
WoW Insider Show Episode 60: Inside Blizzard HQ
The WoW Insider Show landed at its new home, our new Ustream channel, last Saturday, and things went pretty darn well. We had a nice turnout of listeners from all over, and we had Adam Holisky and Turpster on, along with our guest Patrick Beja (of Azeroth.fr, How I WoW, and all of the other podcasts and features at his site Frenchspin). We had a few contests (one of which is still ongoing for you non-live listeners, so make sure to listen for the details if you haven't heard them yet), and we took some of the new features over at Ustream for a spin, including some fun polls.I'm told our new iTunes feed isn't quite up and running yet, but in the future you'll see an iTunes link here as well. Show notes are after the break.[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show in iTunes.[Ustream] Listen to the unedited recording in Ustream.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Or listen to Episode 60 right here:
WoW Insider Show live on the air
Our weekly podcast will be going on the airwaves at 3:30pm Eastern (for about an hour and a half or so), and since we've recently uprooted to a new venue, we're trying something new today -- after the jump, we've put an embedded stream of the podcast, which you can listen to right here on WoW Insider.If you like, you can also just go over to the Ustream page itself, and there'll you'll be able to jump into the chat room, and answer some live polls and other things during the podcast. Plus, we'll be giving away some loot codes during the show as well. Patrick Beja will be on with us to talk about his experiences at BlizzCon, and Turpster and Adam Holisky will join us as well. If you're around this afternoon (maybe playing the new patch or just reading up on our latest posts), click the link below to check it out.
WoW Insider Show goes live on Ustream tomorrow
Yes, it's a time of change for the WoW Insider Show -- just a little over a year ago, we started out as a partnership with WoW Radio, but time has passed, we've grown bigger and bigger, and now it's time to move out on our own. What does this mean for you? Nothing much -- it only means that tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, instead of joining us on WoW Radio, you'll be joining us on our brand new Ustream channel, where you'll be able to listen to our podcast live, chat with everyone else listening to the show (no IRC required), and even try out some fun new features we've baked into the festivities. Other than that, nothing else has changed -- we're still providing news and views on the World of Warcraft, and yes, Turpster is still along for the ride. Tomorrow on the show, we'll ask him why he couldn't find a ship captain to carry him across the ocean to BlizzCon, and we'll welcome WoW Insider blogger Adam Holisky (who was at BlizzCon), and our good friend Patrick Beja, who not only attended nearly every panel at last weekend's BlizzCon, but has actually been inside Blizzard HQ as well. Plus, we don't know if you've heard of a little thing called patch 3.0.2, but we'll take a look at what Echoes of Doom has given us, including achievements, glyphs, and all the strange things you've been discovering this week. And we'll even look at what it hasn't given us quite yet.Oh, and did we mention the giveaways? We'll be giving away not one or two but three different loot card codes to live listeners, which is more than we've ever given out before. Remember, instead of WoW Radio, come visit us at our new Ustream channel, tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, for the revamped WoW Insider Show. Same time, same people, same fun, different URL. See you there.
WoW Insider Show: The 50th episode
It was our 50th show this past week on the WoW Insider Show, so you'll have to forgive us for doing a little more backpatting than usual -- we promise that next week we'll be back to form for sure. But in the second half of the show, we did get down to talking WoW business, and the results are now posted online for your listening pleasure. When we weren't looking back at our favorite moments in the show's history so far (and giving away stuff to people who tuned in live), we also hit on: A live version of Ask a Beta Tester, where we answered listeners' questions about the Wrath beta in real time, including how professions work with Death Knights, what we're not so excited about in the beta, and whether there are any grind quests to be found. We devoted some time to discussing the Vicarious incident, and why it's wrong (or, in Adam's view, right) to give a Legendary ranged bow to a Rogue. And we answered emails about Hero classes and the possibility of another expansion announced at BlizzCon, as well as the fact that I dinged 70 last week, and the terrific Nethack, supposedly the first game with Achievements in it. Lots of fun stuff in the show. If you have questions or concerns to share with us, please do so by sending an email along to theshow@wow.com, and you might even hear it on next week's show. And as always stay tuned to WoW Radio on Saturday afternoons at 3:30pm Eastern to hear the show live, or hit us up on iTunes to download each show automatically. Until next time, have a great week.
WoW Insider Show Episode 50 live tomorrow afternoon
Can you believe it's been almost a year since we started our podcast? Since it began, we've welcomed a few guests, joked around plenty, and done a lot (a lot) of what we do best: talking about all the top news from the last week in Warcraft. This week, we're hitting episode number 50, and since it's our quinquagenary, we're going all out: we'll have a review of some of our favorite moments from previous shows, we'll have a few giveaways just for listeners of the live show, and we may even break out the champagne.Oh, and we'll still do all the things we normally do on the podcast -- Adam Holisky with join Turpster and I, and we'll do a live version of our popular Ask a Beta Tester feature (so bring your questions to the IRC channel at irc.mmoirc.com in #wowradio). And we've got to talk about the first player to wield three legendaries at the same time, right? We'll also see what people think of the new hairstyles, and we'll answer your emails (send them to theshow@wow.com).It's gonna be a blowout for sure. Tune in tomorrow afternoon on WoW Radio at 3:30pm Eastern for the fiftieth episode of the WoW Insider Show.
I love my PvP!
A while back fellow WoW Insider blogger Adam posted his thoughts on PvP, calling PvE the only real game. He makes excellent, valid points as to why he believes this is so, such as the fact that it is quite impossible to level from 1 to 70 through PvP alone. The game was designed around a PvE-centric environment, and the relatively late additions of the Battlegrounds and Honor system are a testament to that. In those respects, Adam is completely correct.Of course, many of you took issue with his statements, even prompting him to publish his personal counterpoint on the matter. As an avid PvP player, I found some of what Adam said to be less than savory myself. It has to be noted that Adam has extensive PvE endgame experience, and his opinions come from a raider's perspective. I will concede his first two points -- you cannot progress in World of Warcraft through PvP alone and that PvP was a mere afterthought. On the other hand, Adam's other points don't quite hold as much water.
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 Show's look at multiboxing now available
Last Saturday on the weekly podcast, we used the whole show to take a look at multiboxing. We had multiboxer Xzin on, along with Adam Holisky from WoW Insider, Duncor of WoW Radio, and myself, and we chatted all about this strange and interesting way to play MMO games like World of Warcraft. We took a look first at the history of multiboxing, including how Xzin originally got interested in it. We examined how exactly it is done, including not only the equipment you need to make it work, but how much multiboxers pay in account fees. We talked with Xzin about the limits of PvE multiboxing, including class combinations and how far you can get running a raid group by yourself And in the second half of the show, we get into some of the controversy about multiboxing, including whether it's fair for multiboxers to take their characters into PvP, and whether Blizzard will ever change or reconsider their decision that multiboxing is legal And finally we talked about the future of multiboxing -- will any MMO game every actually embrace playing multiple accounts at a time as a gameplay mechanic? Pretty interesting stuff -- not only did we talk objectively about a lot of what multiboxing is, but we were able to debate a little bit about whether it's fair, or whether the game is meant to be played in strange ways like this. The show is now available for a listen over on the WoW Radio website, and of course on iTunes as well.If you have input on how the show went or anything else you'd like us to cover on the WoW Insider Show (especially any other guests you might like us to have on), leave a comment below or email us at theshow@wow.com. Next week we'll be back to normal on the show (we're planning to finally have a nice hardcore PvP chat), so stay tuned this weekend for more about our weekly podcast.
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WoW Insider Show: Special multiboxing edition this weekend with guest Xzin
Multiboxing -- we've mentioned it quite a few times here on WoW Insider, and it's always been a controversial subject. While the game is quite clearly not designed around players playing multiple characters at once, Blizzard has stated that they have no problem with it -- as long as people are paying for each account they use, and not using third-party programs to control their characters, Blizzard is fine with it.But I, Mike Schramm, personally have always been quite against the idea of multiboxing. Lots of folks have used macros and programming to control multiple characters all the way up to level 70 and beyond, and some have even taken teams of characters into PvP areas to win battlegrounds and gain honor, or even win the arena seasons, and all the rewards that come with that victory. In my opinion, that's a horrible mockery of the way the game was designed -- this is a social game that is meant to be played with other players, and to pit one person with five computers against a real-life team of five people just isn't fair or interesting. Sure, you might be able to control the movements of five characters with skilled programming and control, but the other team has to coordinate five human minds all together, a much harder and more interesting act, in my personal opinion. I am firmly against multiboxing -- it's not the way this game is meant to be played at all, and while Blizzard may be content to make more money off of someone paying for many accounts, I'm not content to be stuck in a game with them.Which is why, this Saturday on the WoW Insider Show over on WoW Radio (at 3:30pm EST), our guest will be Xzin, one of the most notorious (and popular) multiboxers the game has ever seen.
How Adam got his loot back
About a week and a half ago I reported on an experience I had in Mount Hyjal while fighting Azgalor. While the fight went fine and we did him in one try, I wasn't on Azgalor's threat list and thus did not get any loot. I wasn't on the threat table because I had to tank some spawned demons up and away from the rest of the raid. It was a rather nice conflict of game mechanics.This all happened on Tuesday, March 18th. By Saturday, March 22nd, I had the two shiny pieces of loot that were coming to me: Glory of the Defender and Onslaught Handguards. Specialist Game Master Skelend had sent me the items, along with a form letter apologizing for the issues we experienced in game. I was quite happy to see this resolved. I was even more pleased that it was resolved quickly and did not take a few weeks; as many people, both those of you who left comments and friends of mine that I talked to, said it would.So what are we doing to make sure this never happens again? Well for one thing, all the melee is hitting the boss now with a ranged weapon after the tank gets a couple hits in. That's pretty much all we can do to assure this problem doesn't pop up again for us. Despite a few enquires I've made, there is no word from Blizzard if they've fixed this. I suspect that one day it'll just be hotfixed without much fanfare.All in all, not a terrible experience when something went wrong. Quick and quality support from Blizzard.
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! ;-)
WoW Insider Show Episode 26: Badges, Blizzard and buffs
This past Saturday the WoW Insider Show welcomed Amanda Dean and Adam Holisky on, as well as myself and Turpster, for the 26th episode of our podcast on WoW Radio. Despite some lackluster, if I may say so, email from readers (you can send us some better emails at theshow@wow.com), we charged through and got a lot of good discussion done: We chatted about Amanda's hacked characters, and what a little name-dropping will get you from Blizzard (not much) We confronted whether all this new badge loot makes raiding worthless (surprise -- we decided it does not) We talked about all the new class changes on the PTR, with a special look at Shamans, and the Warlock change to Lifetap. We ran over what Rob Pardo said during the GDC Liveblog And finally, we wondered just what kind of player it takes to PuG with Adam All in all, good show, and you can listen to it right now over on WoW Radio's website. You can also subscribe to our podcast in iTunes if you so choose, and we'll be back at it again next weekend -- every Saturday at 3:30pm EST. Enjoy the show!
WoW Insider Show goes live tomorrow afternoon
Tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, February 23rd at 3:30pm EST on WoW Radio, we'll go live on the air yet again with our august podcast. This week, we've got myself and Turpster as usual (did you hear that he's doing something every week on Tuesday over at Massively nowadays?), and relative WI newbies Amanda Dean and Adam Holisky will be along for the ride. We'll be chatting about all those patch 2.4 changes we've seen in the past week (including the vaporous promise of Shaman buffs), what Heroic Badges are really for, what our compadre Elizabeth Harper heard at GDC, and of course we've got to get the inside story from Adam about what made him so bitter about PuGs.Should be a good time as always. Meet up with us at 3:30pm EST tomorrow afternoon on WoW Radio, and if you'd like (and you have IRC), you can also join us in chat on irc.mmoirc.com, in the #wowradio channel during the show. And if you have a comment, complaint, conundrum, or compliment for us, you can always send it along to theshow@wow.com. We're getting tons of great emails there lately, so we can't answer them all on the show, but we'll answer yours if we can. See you tomorrow!P.S. Oh, and I almost forgot -- as promised last week, we will have exclusive news of a brand new, upcoming WoW Insider contest. Listen in to the show to find out what we're planning!
