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WoW Insider Show Episode 92: Giving Druids another chance
We had a great time as always last Saturday on our podcast -- Turpster and I welcomed Kevin Dika, the winner of the Child's Play Children's Week auction, who gave a very generous donation to Penny Arcade's charity and won a guest spot with us on the show. We talked with Kevin about his WoW experience -- he plays a Ret Pally, but hey, nobody's perfect, right? -- and got some insight from him about running a guild in the game and what a tough job it can be, how to deal with kids and other folks playing along with you, and how to come up with a worthwhile balance between playing the game and living in real life. We answered your emails (including a few more "Turpster is..." emails), and then we talked about the most popular posts from the last week of WoW.com: the new Druid art form coming to the game, what's new in 3.1.3, and where Blizzard has gone wrong recently with 5-mans, and where they might go next.It was an excellent show, and we're happy to have Kevin on to thank him for his support (and he did a pretty great job on the podcast, too). We'll be back on as usual next Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern over on the Ustream page, and we might even do some more video streaming next week -- we did a little bit during the aftershow this week, and it worked out better than I thought. Stay tuned.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 90: Learning the accent
We took to the virtual airwaves yet again last Wednesday, and despite a few audio issues (curse you, Ret Monkey!), we got a nice show in, including some talk about what's coming down in the PTR, including the changes in Wintergrasp. And as usual, we answer your emails -- this week's panel of Amanda Dean, Lesley Smith, and Turpster and I have all kinds of useful advice for you readers. Listen in and maybe you'll learn something.And of course, next Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern is our big video show, featuring actual web video of all your favorite WoW Insider folks, and a few special guests, too. Plus, after the show, we're going to be hanging out on the It Came from the Blog realm of Zangarmarsh, where Turpster and I will duel, Peggle-style. Definitely be sure not to miss it -- we'll see you then.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 89: Best Healer ever
Quite a week on the podcast last Saturday -- Alex Ziebart, Adam Holisky, Turpster and I spent a considerable amount of time answering your emails (talking about everything from whether VoA has been ruined with the new raid boss to the never-say-die issue about which tank is best to take with you), and when we finally did sit down to the Meat of the Show, there was a lot, there, too: an interview with Tom Chilton, who Val'anyr is for (and that crazy proc), and we even snuck in a little Bloodlust/Heroism talk. Listen in to the show on any of the links below.And don't forget: this Wednesday at 6pm Eastern, we'll be doing the show at a special time, since I'm out of town next weekend. And our live video show will be going down on the 23rd at 3:30pm Eastern, so mark your calendars for that if you like.Thanks for tuning in, and enjoy the show.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 88: Child's play
Here's our podcast from last week -- Lesley Smith joined Turpster, Patrick Beja of How I WoW and I to chat about the Martin Fury controversy, how Children's Week and Noblegarden are going on the live realms, and what we've been up to lately in the World of Warcraft. And as usual we answered your email, including sharing ideas for our upcoming video show (we're planning on doing it on May 23rd, so stay tuned for that), how to transfer away from a guild if you happen to be a guildleader, and both why Blizzard canceled WWI, and when BlizzCon tickets might go on sale.We also talked about the ongoing Children's Week Charity Auction -- bidding has slowed down a bit over the weekend, so if you're interested in helping out kids in hospitals by donating some money to buy them videogames, go on over to the auction page and find something to bid on. All the money raised goes directly to Child's Play, so get your bids in now while you can.And as we mentioned on the show, here's the schedule for the next few weeks: we'll have a show as usual next Saturday the 9th, and then we'll have a special midweek show on the 13th of May. And then on the 23rd, we'll be live on camera for the video show. Should be really interesting -- we'll see you then!Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 87: Extreme Peggle fever
Another great week on our podcast last Saturday. We welcomed a brand new voice in our newest writer, Lesley Smith, as well as a familiar old one in the great Alex Ziebart, and of course Turpster and I were on hand as usual. We talked about patch 3.1.1 and a few of the hotfixes that are going out lately, the server downtime and how it compares to past patches, what the new five-man instance might be, and of course the coming of a thing called Peggle.We answered email as well -- we talked about what to do when your guild didn't have enough room in their raids, and we decided to contribute a prize to our friend Brigwyn's Child's Play auction: when his auction goes live May 1-7, you'll have a chance to bid on a guest appearance on the WoW Insider Show. Given that you have Skype installed and a free Saturday afternoon around 3:30pm (and of course that you're the highest bidder in the charity auction), you'll be able to join Turpster and I for about an hour of Warcraft discussion, along with a few other actual prizes we'll dig out of the prize closet. Stay tuned to both WoW Insider and The Hunting Lodge for more info about that.Enjoy the show, and we'll be back next week as always.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 86: No love for Gnomes
Here's this week's episode of the WoW Insider Show, in which we recapped patch 3.1 and all of the class goodness and new content included in there, as well as the Ulduar cinematic and that fact that Gnomes have been historically dissed by Blizzard's machinimists. We checked in on your emails as well -- we got some Rogue theorycrafting in the mix thanks to our Encrypted Text writer Chase Christian stopping by, and we checked back in with Duncor of WoW Radio for the first time in a while on both which tank is the best and whether leather-wearing casters should get cloth upgrades or not.Was a good show -- you can give it a listen at any of the links below, or just subscribe to us in iTunes to get the show automagically every Monday. We'll be back live on the air next Saturday, and we're climbing ever closer to a few big goals: in just 14 weeks, we're set to hit our 100th show, which will definitely be a nice anniversary for us, and we're only 600 followers away from hitting our goal of over 9000 followers on our Twitter account. So join up there if you haven't yet, and I'll get the tux out to the cleaners in anticipation.Enjoy the show this week and we'll see you next time!Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 85: Appeasing the Ret Monkey
A good time was had as always on last weekend's WoW Insider Show -- Adam Holisky kindly stepped into the broadcasting booth with Turpster and I, and we answered some emails (including whether it's OK to give cloth drops to leather wearers, as long as it's an upgrade, and more on which tanking class is the best to take with you), and talked turkey on the biggest stories in the World of Warcraft. We chatted about what might be in store for the next content patch and expansion, what's up with WoW's numbers still going up, and what's new with Wintergrasp in 3.1. We also had a straight-from-the-scene report about the PETA event -- stay tuned for more about that later today.And we got some interesting Ret Monkey pictures -- the one to the right is by Hydralol of EU Magtheridon, and the other one in the gallery below is by Abbort from Hellscream. Both of these, and any other pictures that you can come up with of the Ret Monkey or any of us who work on the show can be eligible for our Fan Art contest, so enter that if you'd like.Finally, we have rounded 6,000 followers on our Twitter account, and we're headed to 9,000 -- as we say on the show, it would be great if we could hit that by our 100th show, and combine everything into one big party-down spectacular. So tell your twitterfriends, especially those interested in WoW, to give us a follow. They (and you) won't regret it.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 84: The grass is greener
Good times as always on the podcast last Saturday -- we welcomed blogger Nick Whelan on, of his own Curse of Senility and the newest writer on our own Blood Pact column, all about Warlocks. Turpster and Michael "Belfaire" Sacco also joined us, and we answered your emails (including some follow-up on just how loyal you should be to your guild, even when they're not really progressing), as well as talked about the most popular WoW insider posts for the past week: why 25-man gear should be better than 10-man gear, new news out of patch 3.1 (which, if you listen to Turpster, is right around the corner), and all of the April Fools jokes that went around last Wednesday. You can download the show at any of the links below, or pick it up by subscribing in iTunes (and it's been a while since we asked you to leave some reviews over there, so if you haven't ever done that and really enjoy the show, please do tell people what you think). Also, don't forget that we're in the middle of a bit Twitter-drive: we're aiming for over 9000 followers on Twitter, and if we can pull that off, we'll be doing a video version of the weekly podcast, so you'll get to see our ugly mugs as we talk (and you could probably even convince us to dress up for it -- you haven't lived until you've seen The T in a tuxedo). And I don't want to put any pressure on you, but we're nearing our 100th show, and how cool would it be if we hit our goal by then and did the special show on the anniversary? Just sayin'.Enjoy this show this week -- we'll be back live next Saturday as usual.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 83 with Alex Albrecht
We had a great time on the podcast last Saturday, and it was a full house: Turpster, our friend Patrick Beja, Michael "Belfaire" Sacco were all on board, and we welcomed a special guest, Alex Albrecht of Project Lore. And despite the fact that we had so many people on, not only did we answer your email questions (apparently I'm the only one who believes in guild loyalty, even when progression isn't happening), but we talked some World of Warcraft as well: why Arena players have left the Arenas, what might be in that brand new battleground, and why a free iPhone Authenticator program is so great. (And thanks by the way, Blizzard, for that one.)The recording of the show is now out on the feed and at the links below, so download away. Huge thanks yet again to Alex Albrecht for stopping by the show, and congrats go out to him on his Streamys win on Saturday. We'll be back as usual next week, kicking off the show as always just a little bit before 3:30pm Eastern.And don't forget: we met our Facebook goal of 4,000 fans, and the song that came out of that turned out pretty darn epic, if we say so ourselves. But we've got another goal: we're aiming for over 9,000 followers on Twitter, and if we can pull that off, we'll do a live video version of the podcast. And who knows what kind of hilarity will ensue from that one. If you're on Twitter (or even if you're not) and haven't started following us, please do! And hey, we tweet all kinds of things that never show up on the site, so it's even more WoW Insider for your efforts. See you next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Friday Favorite: The Levelator, friend to podcasters everywhere
We've mentioned it before (via Laurie and Scott's posts back in ought-six) but it's worth a Friday Favorite: if you're looking for a free, cross-platform tool that does one thing to audio and does it very very well, you need to download The Levelator today.The Levelator is offered by The Conversations Network as a single-purpose tool: it takes uncompressed audio (WAV or AIFF files) and performs a small miracle. The file is leveled to a uniform loudness level, even if varying parts are recorded with different microphones, audio settings, or even in diverse corners of the world (if you've ever tried to record a podcast over Skype, you know what I'm talking about). While many audio apps have normalization or 'leveling' functions, in my admittedly amateur audio experience I haven't heard anything like The Levelator; those with more savvy in this area tell me that the output is akin to what you would get with a human engineer 'riding the meters' to adjust the sound dynamically as it varies.The really nice thing about The Levelator -- and this is an odd thing to say about a Mac application -- is that it has, for all practical purposes, no controls. Drop a file on it, wait an appropriate amount of time and watch the blinking lights, then take your output file and continue on your merry way; the final file will simply sound way better than the original did. It's made my life much easier in editing the TUAW Talkcast, and if you have any hand in producing spoken-word audio it might do the same for you.The Levelator is a free 48 MB Universal Binary download, and will work on either 10.4 or 10.5, as well as Windows and Linux. Enjoy!
WoW Insider Show Episode 82: Knock it off? Get it on!
Hoo boy, what a show at our podcast on Saturday. After one of the craziest starts our show has ever had (BRK's house decided to go a little nuts right before we started), we got as professional as we could and got down to business. After answering emails (including more on why you should listen to your mother), we talked about the addon changes and how they'll affect players and developers, Blizzard's plans for a mobile authenticator, and more of the latest news out of patch 3.1. We also brainstormed new flavors for Mountain Dew, and finally, we played what everyone was waiting to hear: Turpster's new WoW Insider song.Yes, because our fans were kind enough to get 4,000 people to join in on our Facebook page, we recorded that abomination of hilarity. You can download it as an mp3 right here, for use in remixes or machinima or whatever you want to do with it, and I've posted the lyrics and liner notes after the break. Enjoy.And don't forget we're currently in a campaign for OVER 9000 Twitter followers. Join up to Twitter and follow us, and please tell your guilds and friends to do the same -- if we can meet our goal there, we'll do a live video version of the podcast that you'll be able to see right here on the site. Enjoy the show as always, and we'll see you next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 81: Same place, new time
This past week on the WoW Insider Show, we mixed things up -- instead of our usual time on Saturday at 3:30pm, we taped the show on Wednesday night, so if you missed it this week, here it is in recorded form. Don't worry -- we'll be back as usual next Saturday, we just though we'd give some new people a chance to tune in live.And speaking of new people, we had Chase Christian return to the podcast for the first time in a while, with lots of great Rogue discussion from his Encrypted Text Rogue column. And we were (thankfully) joined at the last minute by none other than Patrick Beja, from the How I WoW podcast and all the other great shows he does. And as is the case lately, we talked the PTR, patch 3.1, Ulduar, and all of the other good stuff we plan to eventually see on the live realms.Was a fun show -- enjoy the listen, and please do go sign up to follow us on Twitter if you haven't yet. We'll see you again at the usual time, Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern, next week.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:
WoW Insider Show Episode 80: Listen to your mom
We had a little bit of everything on this week's WoW Insider Show. We got down and dirty with Ulduar details, as Michael Sacco walked us through all of fhe bosses he'd done so far on the PTR. Turpster and I got a little silly for the fans (unfortunately, the song is stlll yet to come, but I'll reiterate: it'll be worth the wait), we told a kid how important it is to stay in school, and we even snuck in some good advice on how to make some money fast ingame.You can listen to last week's show, as always, on any or all of the links below, and be sure to send us an email at theshow@wow.com if you've got any feedback you'd like to share. Don't forget, too, that there is no show next Saturday -- instead, we're going to be recording the podcast live on Wednesday night at 9pm EST over on the Ustream page, so if you've never had the chance to hear the show before, this'll be your opportunity to tune in and listen live. We'll return back to our normal time on Saturday, March 21st.In the meantime, enjoy the show.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:
WoW Insider Show Episode 79: Argently competing
We had a great time as usual last weekend on the podcast -- Dan O'Halloran and BigRedKitty joined me on the WoW Insider Show, and we chatted about the most popular stories in WoW from the last week. We answered your emails, including how to fill up your guild with quality raiders and what kinds of things you can do to make leveling an alt easier (including not leveling an alt at all).And of course we talked 3.1 -- a little bit of class changes, lots of information about the new dual spec system, what the equipment manager is like (and what it can do for you), Ulduar and the bosses we've seen so far, and finally, the Argent Tournament: what we know and what we don't know just yet. And of course we updated folks on Turpster's new song (almost done, but not quite mastered yet), and on our drive to get over 9000 Twitter followers. If you aren't following us yet, head over to Twitter and hit follow so we can hit our goal and do a video podcast.Was a fun show to make, and hopefully you'll have just as much fun listening to it. We'll see you next week.Update: As promised, here's BRK's intro in mp3 form. No idea what you all wanted it for, but there you go.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:
WoW Insider Show Episode 78: Thrusting Hodir's shoot 'em up aces high
It was chaos on the WoW Insider Show this past week -- we had Zach Yonzon on from the Philippines, Turpster in from England, and Michael Sacco from Austin, TX, so we were stretched across the world (and you can probably hear it in our audio). But we still got some good WoW discussion in, including our favorite daily quests (I've done Shoot 'Em Up every day since we recorded this, and I still really like it), a little bit about Ulduar and what we might find in there, and the coming PTR and what we might see there as well.Plus, as scrambled and confusing as this show may be, it has probably the funniest moment in my memory of all our recordings -- I think we were all pretty much "ROFL" at the new Meat of the Show intro, as they say on the Internet. If you want to send in an intro, a comment, or anything else, feel free to send it along to theshow@wow.com, and you might even hear it on the next recording, next Saturday at 3:30 Eastern as usual.Enjoy. We'll see you next week.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:
WoW Insider Show live worldwide this afternoon
Yes, our show is going intercontinental yet again today -- on one side of the world, we'll have the inimitable Turpster chatting with us from England, and on the other, Zach Yonzon will be calling in from his home in the Philippines. We've tried to tackle some Paladin news lately, and we haven't done it very well, so Zach will help us get a grip on what's up with you plate healers lately. And from the US, Michael Sacco (a.k.a. Belfaire) will be on with us as well.Should be a great show. We'll go live at 3:30 EST over on the Ustream page (and there's an embedded stream right after the break here), and we'll talk about the plans for Ulduar, the imminent PTR, vehicular combat and why some people dislike it so much, and we may even fit in a little bit of discussion about pets tanking and why Blizzard says no. And we'll answer your emails and questions -- you can talk to us in the live chat if you're around for the show (and the preshow and the aftershow), or you can always email us at theshow@wow.com.We'll see you this afternoon!
WoW Insider Show Episode 77: The Lady Factor
We had a great time on the WoW Insider Show this past weekend -- Turpster and I welcomed back Michael Sacco (formerly known as Belfaire on the official forums and now a blogger here on WoW Insider) and manly man Matthew Rossi to talk about what's coming up in patch 3.0.9, what we thought of the dual spec news we heard last week, and our progress (or lack thereof, apparently) on the Love is in the Air event. We also answered lots of emails from listeners, and speculated on what Blizzard's future release schedule might look like.And a huge thanks to all of our listeners for hitting 4,000 fans on our Facebook page -- Turpster's song is coming soon (hopefully next week), and as a mini-reward this week, by request, here's a downloadable version of Sammy T's great "Meat of the Show" song (just right-click save as, and if you do anything with it, be sure to let us know).Our next goal has to do with our Twitter page -- as we announced on the show, if we can get "over 9000" Twitter followers there, we'll do a video version of our podcast, either with ingame video or Turpster and me on camera ourselves. So tell your friends and Twitter followers to check us out over there. Enjoy the show, and we'll see you as always next week.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:
WoW Insider Show Episode 76: All the bests
We had a really fun (and longer than usual) time on the WoW Insider Show this past week -- Turpster and Michael Sacco joined me to talk about all of the patch 3.1 class changes, from Druids to Death Knights, and we answered lots and lots of reader email, including what to do if your guild is too small to raid, whether to go PvP or PvE, and the lore and quests of the current endgame (or lack thereof, as the case may be).Lots of great chat in there about classes in general -- we were pretty one-topic-minded this week but we basically cover a state-of-the-game of class balance, and talk about what's up and what's down for each class in 3.1. And last but not least, we updated everyone on our big Facebook quest -- we've got over 3600 fans so far, and if we hit 4000, Turpster will premiere a new song on our show. And we had the winner of our Authenticator contest send us pictures of what Turpster sent to him -- find the full versions after the break below (and feel free to color/remix them as you see fit).Was a lot of fun -- hopefully you'll enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. We'll see you next week.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:
WoW Insider Show Episode 75: The Meat of the Show
Wacky times on the podcast this past week -- along with BRK and Turpster, we were able to welcome our good friends Shawn Coons and Patrick Beja of the How I WoW podcast. They talked with us about themselves, including Shawn's recent move, and Patrick's ongoing campaign to get his parents to play videogames, and we talked a whole lot of World of Warcraft, too. We answered emails about the correct pronounciation of "Fah-jord", how Blizzard can get more players on the PTR, and what to do to get into a good guild, and during the show we broke down the latest bugfix patch, talked about the Lunar Festival (and why we weren't interested in it), a little bit about group management and how best to do it, and we ran down exactly how we WoW, too.Also, we've got some great fan audio in the show as well -- an excellent intro, and perhaps the best thing we've ever played on the song ever: a "Meat of the Show" intro by listener Sammy T. Seriously, give this thing a listen -- we played part of it during the show, but you can hear the whole thing afterwards, and it's great. If you'd like to send us an intro or just a note about something you've heard on the show or want us to answer, the email address is theshow@wow.com -- just drop an mp3 attachment in there or speak your mind, and you might hear it on next week's show.Remember, we do this live every Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern over on the Ustream page, so if you're around next Saturday, be sure to stop by and say hi. We'll see you next week -- enjoy the show.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:
Platinum Games launches community site
Billed as a "grand experiment," Japanese developer Platinum Games just opened an English-language website for gamers outside of the land that birthed Chocobos. Rather than creating a corporate site de rigeur, Platinum's taking a more community-based approach, including forums (MadWorld will be teh awesome everyone!), social media interaction (Hideki Kamiya just ate a sandwich!) and even a video podcast. "It is part corporate homepage, part purpose built community portal," reads the site's front page. And between that fancy new logo and this community-based initiative, we'll remain hopeful going forward. After all, this isn't the first time a Japanese developer has tried to do this, right? What's the worst that could happen?
