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The Best of WoW Insider: July 2010
Two words: Real ID. July was defined by the latest iteration of an old meta-game, Blizzard versus Players. The community had an almost universally hostile reaction to Blizzard's announcement that the use of one's real name would be required for posting on the Battle.net forums, and the controversy raged to newspapers, magazines, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), and third-party sites very quickly. Predictably, it only took 4chan about 10 minutes to publish the names, addresses, phone numbers, profiles, blood types, and favorite movies of every prominent Blizzard employee it could find. The sad thing is, the issue may not even be over despite Blizzard's backing down; the best that players could get from the company was language indicating it could be a temporary reprieve at best. Quoth the dime-store movie villain, this isn't over -- and it's not going to be, as long as Facebook's making serious bank. On the lighter side, the above scene from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (NSFW due to language and violence) started circulating among several WoW communities during the controversy as proof that the loss of online privacy didn't have to be a bad thing, as long as you were the one capitalizing on it.
The Best of WoW Insider: April 2010
April was another busy month here. An increasing number of players finished Icecrown Citadel, and Cataclysm news sped from a trickle to ... well, I'm not sure I'd describe it as a gush, but we saw the earliest planned class changes and a series of announcements on altered mechanics. Oh, and we also briefly turned the site into Twilight Insider for April Fool's, and Blizzard debuted the famous "sparkle pony." News Eyonix leaving Blizzard A sad day for many of us who had waited religiously for his posts. Rage normalization in Cataclysm Hot on the heels of Rossi's argument that rage was broken (see past the cut), Blizzard announced an upcoming effort to "normalize rage" again for Cataclysm. I glossed the previous effort to normalize rage (in the beginning of The Burning Crusade) as follows: Blizzard: We're normalizing rage. Warriors: What does that mean? Blizzard: It means that normally, you won't have any. Warriors: ... oh. No no no no no no no no! Lil' XT was plagued by a bug that vastly increased the range at which you could hear his emotes and vocalizations. Blizzard wound up having to disable them before more players threw themselves off cliffs in an effort to escape. Blizzard bans 320,000 Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 players Blizzard started "cleaning house" (as Gregg termed it) on Battle.net in preparation for the release of Starcraft 2.
The best of WoW Insider: March 2010
With more players reaching the Lich King and "finishing" the expansion (although I wouldn't have suggested saying that to anyone toiling on the Icecrown Citadel drakes), the community turned a little more of its attention to the future. The community's appetite for all things Cataclysm was in no way sated by the trickle of expansion information in this period, and more and more of our writers began to speculate on possible changes. News Cataclysm stat and system changes revealed The first sign of things to come. Operation Gnomeregan: Transcript and details and Operation Echo Isles: Transcripts and details The Operation: Gnomeregan and Zalazane's Fall events were datamined long before they ever went live, and Gregg did the legwork to figure out what was going on. Goon Squad downs Tirion Fordring Really, Goon Squad? Really? Though, as Sacco observes, there's a term for this you might as well start getting used to hearing -- "emergent gameplay." WoW Insider's guide to WoW resources We decided to put together as comprehensive a listing of fan sites and WoW blogs as we could manage. World of Warcraft Patch 3.3.3 release notes Patch 3.3.3 went live, and with it, the "greed only" policy on frost orbs that Mat had written about the previous month. PUG players everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. Cataclysm earthquake mobs visible in Stormwind "Shaker" mobs were visible on several servers, a precursor to the earthquakes yet to come. Paragon scores world-first heroic Lich King It took almost two months for a guild to get the heroic 25-man Lich King down.
The Best of WoW Insider: January 2010
As with last year, our editors have asked us to put together a list of what we considered the year's best stories. As of now, there are 12 days until the end of the year, so we thought it'd be fun to do another end-of-year countdown showcasing a different month each day. We hope you'll enjoy a selection of WoW Insider's best and most insightful, funny, and thoughtful stories from 2010. We also took the liberty of including articles that best captured the zeitgeist of Wrath of the Lich King in its waning arc. January 2010 wasn't a quiet month for us. Players were just about a month into Icecrown Citadel, and the still-new dungeon finder was keeping even non-raiders thoroughly occupied. Patch 3.3 had been enthusiastically received ("Great patch or greatest patch?" as we asked at the time), but we were seeing the first glimmer of social changes wrought by the dungeon finder and continuing problems with account security. News Man forced to choose between his wife and his orc Really, this is the sort of philosophical conundrum that might have occupied Aristotle in an earlier age. Blizzard giving serious consideration to mandatory authenticators The number of hacked characters seemed to peak in late 2009/early 2010, and Blizzard had a few ways to deal with it -- including giving players the option of not actually restoring a hacked character. Alex wrote a counterpoint article with a few observations concerning the sheer scale of the problem. Beware of WoW Armory phishing scams Robin had spent much of the previous year battling scammers and had no intention of stopping. Bobby Kotick didn't think Blizzard was worth 7 million in 1996 Oh, how swiftly things change. Though, as commenters pointed out, he may not really have been wrong at the time. Help! My account has been hacked We received so many complaints about hacking, phishing, and scamming that Robin wrote a straightforward article on how to handle it if you were among the unfortunate victims. In 8 months, Blizzard wound up automating the process.
