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World of Warcraft Remote services now free to all players
Users of the World of Warcraft Remote subscription service just got some interesting news today. Apparently, WoW Remote features, including the mobile auction house and guild chat, have been made available to all players for free starting today. Remote services still require a capable smartphone, of course, so if you're still using that old Nokia brick, it may be time to upgrade. Now that these features are being made free, I wonder if this means new premium features are in the works? What do you think -- mobile pet battles? Update: Blizzard has released the formal announcement on the official World of Warcraft community site. Players who had previously been paying for a WoW Remote subscription are also reporting that they received thank you emails from Blizzard, along with 7 free days of game time for their active WoW accounts, and a Lil' XT non-combat pet to keep or give to a friend.
Breakfast Topic: What feature does WoW need most?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Grandpappy Frostheim would probably say that we, the mass of WoW players, have more options, features, sparkly things, humdingers and thing-a-ma-jigs to help us play than ever before -- and he would be right. But I don't believe that should mean there aren't more features and upgrades to our interface and experience that would improve things even further. Just in the past year or so, Blizzard has added a ton to our interfaces, including an improved built-in quest helper, built-in power auras, and the remote auction house. These all are great "quality of life" improvements for the majority of players. The remote auction house is one of my favorite new features, as playing the AH is as fun as many other parts of the game for me. I had heard rumors before the remote auction house was released that you'd be able to use your crafting professions remotely as well. This would have enabled me to buy on the AH, craft gear or cut gems, and then sell my finished product, all remotely. I'm sure this would bring me a lot closer to being gold-capped. Oh well, I can dream, can't I? Most everyone has some idea they feel could be added to improve the gaming experience. Are you one of those still hungering for the dance studio, or is there some other feature you think WoW really needs?
WoW Mobile Armory gets 3-D model viewer, activity feeds and more
The newest version of the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory has been released on iTunes, featuring a 3-D model viewer for all characters, activity feeds similar to the ones on the web version of the armory, and optimizations for Apple's iOS 4.0. Included in the update is a cool feature called screenshot mode, allowing you to take cool pictures of your characters in front of lots of backdrops, including the racial capital cities. The screenshot mode will even remove all of the interface elements from the phone, giving you a clean shot. This update could be laying the groundwork for the newly revealed mobile guild chat service available through the armory app, potentially unlocked in the near future for subscribers to Blizzard's Remote Auction House service. Hopefully, more light will be shed on this functionality in the near future. Until then, get updating, because these new features are pretty neat. Previously, I would have had to bookmark the armory's RSS feed for my characters and open them in Safari on the iPhone, but with the new activity feeds built right into the armory app, things have gotten a lot less clunky. %Gallery-103031%
Guild chat coming to the Mobile Armory app
Wrocas (European community manager) announced on the WoW forums moments ago that a guild chat feature will be added to the Mobile Armory that's available on both the iPhone and Android. Players have been asking for this type of feature ever since the armory was introduced. This feature piggybacks off the same service that the remote auction house uses, which requires an additional monthly fee on top of your normal World of Warcraft subscription. One fee to rule them all (and by "all," I mean both the mobile auction house and the guild chat feature). This allows access to guild chat, officer chat (presuming you had access to start with) and whispers. It appears the whispers will only be allowed to and from guild members, at the moment. There is also no news about being able to chat with your Real ID friends. If you don't have a device that the Mobile Armory runs on, Blizzard will soon be adding this feature to the normal armory as well. The full announcement is behind the break.
Gold Capped: The Undermine Journal
So you want to make gold in WoW? Basil "Euripides" Berntsen is here to help! Auction house PvP is the only true PvP: There are no relevant racials, all classes are equally balanced, and the only differentiators are knowledge and guts. Gold Capped can help with the first one, and if you can make it through a whole article's worth of my typos, bad puns and feral druid jokes every Wednesday, you're guaranteed to have the second one. There's a new tool in my kit. The Undermine Journal, whose alpha was just recently launched, is a site that lets you see data from your auction house live from the internet. My realm was recently added, and when I searched for Eternal Belt Buckles, it showed me a convenient Google Finance-style graph of the price and availability, as well as the mats needed for it, and a list of my competition! Words fail me, so hop past the break for a screengrab.
Mail access being considered for mobile app
In a recent forums thread, European CM Vaneras confirmed that in-game mail access is being considered for the armory mobile app. It is of course far from being confirmed -- but still, in theory, if it were implemented, it could be handy, allowing people on the go to transfer items between bank alts, manage consumable distribution between characters and more. Vaneras also said that Blizzard is always researching new potential additions to their web and mobile services as well, which actually piques my interest even more. I'd personally love to see guild chat and in-game chat channels added to the mobile and web services. If I could use a messenger program to stay hooked in to my guild and my friends list even when I'm not playing, I'd be willing to throw a few extra bucks a month Blizzard's way.
Remote Auction House beta testing ends
The Remote Auction House's beta testing has come to a close this evening and is now officially a live, paid-only service. For $2.99 every 30 days, you can buy, sell and trade from anywhere in the world via browser or iPhone. Well, anywhere that you have an internet connection. While non-paying users can still view the auction house, only subscribers can actually do business via the Remote Auction House. Check the official Remote Auction House page for a breakdown of the differences between free and paid users. Do note that this subscription fee is only for the Remote Auction House. Every player can still use the auction house in-game as a part of their usual $15/month. If you're interested in ponying up the $2.99/month but didn't get a chance to try out the app during the testing phase, you can check out our galleries below for a little preview of the service. %Gallery-93251% %Gallery-93255%
Remote auction house beta test expanded
Blizzard's community managers have just announced that the beta testing phase of the Remote Auction House is no longer exclusive to the Whirlwind battlegroup and has been expanded to all US realms. This includes both the mobile app for the iPhone as well as the web-based auction house found on the Armory. For a preview of this app's features, both the mobile and web versions, check out the galleries below. %Gallery-93251% %Gallery-93255%
