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The best of WoW.com: August 2009
BlizzCon, BlizzCon, BlizzCon! That's pretty much what August was all about -- well, that and patch 3.2. Because this month was mostly crammed full of pure, unadulterated news about the upcoming convention and Cataclysm, there weren't quite as many one-off features this time around. All the World's a Stage: Reflections on the passing of a roleplayer's mom: This isn't a very easy article to summarize. All I can say is -- please read it. One of David Bowers' most elegant and introspective pieces: "WoW is not an escape from life, it is a reflection of it." WoW.com's Patch 3.2 Guide and content for the day: Patch 3.2 went live on August 4th and was (oddly enough) one of the top stories for the year. In hindsight, it probably wasn't that surprising -- it had been a while since Ulduar had gone live, and the Argent Tournament patch heralded the introduction of a slew of new pets, mounts, titles, and new druid forms. Huzzah! Playing WoW for charity: Interview with the WoWathon team: Three college students managed to raise $5,000 for Child's Play with a marathon WoW session coupled with "dramatic readings of bad fanfiction." Researchers study WoW to see how gangs form and fade: A UC-Irvine team has been studying guild and group formation ingame for data on "group ecology." As Schramm observed, "Listen, guys, all you have to do to break up gangs is ensure there's not enough loot to go around."
The best of WoW.com: July 2009
July 2009 was defined by two dominant trends -- waiting for patch 3.2 to hit, and an increasing amount of information starting to flow that would be confirmed one month later at BlizzCon. Blizzard files trademark for Cataclysm: Gee, we wonder why? Arcane Brilliance: Five things every mage should do before they ding 80: Archmage Pants guides you through some things that should be on every leveling mage's checklist before the endgame. Encrypted Text: Fan of Knives mechanics deep-dive: Chase Christian runs across a rogue on his server who's able to kill people in an interesting manner, and goes on the theorycrafting warpath to figure out how he's doing it. Worgen Garwal hotfixed, now untameable: Worgen pets were, for a brief period, universally agreed to be the coolest thing in the game before being hotfixed into oblivion. Reason given? Something vague concerning why Blizzard doesn't want hunters to have humanoid pets. Yes. Yes, that must be it.
The best of WoW.com: June 2009
Raids were still rolling through Ulduar and experimenting with hard modes, and we were waiting for patch 3.2 to hit the PTR, but the most interesting thing about this month was definitely the increased notice we started taking of account security. Patch 3.2: Argent Coliseum 5-man and raid story/encounters: Sacco ventures deep into the wilds of the PTR, and an insane amount of work on his part produced a comprehensive guide to what happened in the Coliseum, the accompanying lore, and the boss abilities you needed to plan for. New Tauren cat forms and new Night Elf cat forms revealed: Allison cries harder. I wasn't initially warm to the new Tauren cat form, but it grew on me as soon as I saw it in motion on the PTR. WoW, Casually: What is casual?: The $64,000 question -- what does it even mean to be a casual player these days? Robin weighs in.
The best of WoW.com: April 2009
April rolled around, and so did patch 3.1 and Ulduar -- a huge, all-encompassing raid experience that pitted you against Titanic creations and Yogg-Saron, distant cousin of C'thun. Later in the month, a revamped Noblegarden went live to howls of protest from players who found all of their egg spawns camped, and we got some unsettling news that someone was one-shotting Ulduar bosses. Seriously? Seriously. A video guide to Grid: Grid is one of the best all-around mods you can use, but fairly intimidating to configure. Paxxz of Feathermoon walks you through it with a great video guide. BRK fans post a good-bye: In the early part of the year, we lost both Phaelia and Big Red Kitty to RL demands. BRK fans put together a good-bye video for everyone's favorite Dwarf hunter. /salute BRK. Are we being teased about the next expansion?: Swing and a hit! Why we should expect an expansion announcement at BlizzCon: Another swing and a hit!
The best of WoW.com: March 2009
While looking over March 2009, one of the things that immediately jumps at me is that this month had a lot of great news on PvP. My guess? With Tier 7 content growing increasingly stale and Ulduar encounters being doled out sparingly on the PTR, lots of players started to dip their toes back into arena and battlegrounds, and promptly got them chopped off by the howling pack of death knights infesting BG's like a Biblical plague. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Disembodied skull confirms new battleground, your grim future: Sacco's personal favorite of the year, and the first solid news we had of the upcoming Isle of Conquest. Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, Wrath, and crushing blows: I was grimly expecting to get crucified by commenters for this piece. I was definitely not expecting it to get the reaction it did or a visit from Ghostcrawler. All the World's a Stage: Impromptu RP raiding: Rossi acquires walking stick, goes on rampage around Orgrimmar. Next day; Rossi acquires bouquet of daisies, goes on rampage around Orgrimmar. Why now's the best time to run BC content: Bored with Tier 7? Tier 6 is on notice.
The best of WoW.com: February 2009
We'd rolled Naxxramas, trounced Malygos, beaten Sartharion and his little drakes to death -- and that was all there was to do in Tier 7. With a roughly three-month wait between Wrath going live and the first whisper of patch 3.1 hitting the PTR, a number of players found themselves out of raiding content within the space of two days a week and already exalted with the game's four new factions (the sole unfortunate byproduct of Blizzard making rep grinds less hellish). To top it all off, many instance servers were still plagued by chronic lag and instability, and that's assuming you could get on them at all with the masses of people trying to run heroics and raids. Ulduar was a long way off. Nerd rage grew. Frustration was brought to a boil and then simmered for 20 minutes as per box instructions. This was the winter of our discontent -- or distraction, one of the two. Some playwright should get on that. Replenishment -- what are the odds?: At the time Eliah wrote this, there were only 3 DPS specs that could provide Replenishment, and Blizzard had confirmed that it was balancing even 10-man raids around its presence. This wound up pigeonholing certain classes, and proved to be a bit of a headache for raid leaders at a time when most casters and healers weren't rocking much mana efficiency. Blizzard responds to the Glider situation: Blizzard finally succeeded in shutting down the most common botting program, and Nethaera went public with a statement on both the history of the conflict, the problems that had resulted ingame, and why they'd been forced to take matters to court. Resto4Life closing its doors: Phaelia was a huge and irreplaceable loss to the WoW blogging community. Blizzard later honored her with an ingame item in Ulduar. She wasn't the only high-profile WoW community person to announce her departure in February --
The best of WoW.com: January 2009
In backchannel team discussion, Dan O'Halloran asked us to nominate our best stories for the year. "I don't mean the most popular or even the most commented on," he wrote, but "editorials, class columns, analysis, or even funny or touching posts," the ones we were happiest and/or proudest of writing. I'd like to think that our list captures (or at least tries to capture) the zeitgeist of the player community, and how things evolved from the very beginning of Wrath to the patch where players will (eventually) face the ultimate boss of the expansion. Yesterday we realized that, as of today, there are 12 days to go until 2010, so we though what we'd do is break down our favorite posts into each month of 2009. Today, obviously, covers January. Wrath was less than two months old when the new year rolled around. While most players were still leveling their mains, gearing them up, and taking their first steps into heroics, others were already steamrolling Tier 7 or trying to steamroll things like Glory of the Raider.
The best of WoW.com: August 11-18, 2009
It's BlizzCon fever over on Joystiq sister site WoW.com. Blizzard's annual convention takes place this weekend in Anaheim, and boy are we ready to go there. While we're all packing and flying cross-country to see what Blizzard has in store for us (a new expansion announcement? More Diablo III and Starcraft II info?), you can read up on our most popular stories of the last seven days below. News World of Warcraft: Cataclysm leakedSpoilers aplenty in this roundup of leaks about the expected new expansion. Onyxia returns in patch 3.2.2The big black dragon is back for another go-round. Possible new race/class combinations dataminedA new PTR hints that certain races might be able to take on new classes soon. Patch 3.2.2 PTR: New Onyxia loot revealedWhat'll she drop? Find out here. Felicia Day unleashes geeky pop singleThe Guild folks release a pop song that's as geeky as it gets. Features Raid Rx: Raid bosses that brought healers to their kneesOur raid healing series looks at bosses that give healers an extra challenge. Breakfast Topic: What if you knew the day WoW would go offline?Would you play differently? Or not at all? PTR Patch 3.2.2: First impressions of OnyxiaFirst look at the big 5th anniversary boss fight. All the World's a Stage: Reflections on the passing of a roleplayer's momVery sad but poignant column -- a must read this week, whether you're an RPer or not. Totem Talk: Starting a ShamanHow to begin being a totem-dropper.
