2008年5月21日星期三

Forum post of the day: Favored Son

Telasero of Ravenholdt made an interesting discovery. He claims that he has found proof that Blizzard favors the Horde. He found a some kind of prehistoric bone art hanging from the wall that he believes matches up to the a Cuneiform Symbol for "Favored Son." I am no expert on ancient writing world of warcraft gold, so I have a hard time verifying the actual symbol, but the pictures are strikingly similar. It could be a coincidence, but I'd like to believe it's an Easter Egg.

Is this undeniable proof that Blizzard is playing favorites with the two factions? I don't think so. Breavis of Nazgrel pointed out that Thrall is known as the chosen son, so the symbol could represent him rather than the entirety of the Horde cheap wow gold. The battle will likely rage on about which side Blizzard prefers. Drysc has pointed out in the forums that your opinion on which side is favored is usually based on whichever side you do not play.

Do you believe this to be a coincidence or not?

2008年5月20日星期二

Age of Conan for World of Warcraft players

Funcom's new MMO Age of Conan opens up their servers today (the game is set for release tomorrow), and like many WoW players, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Our good friends over at Massively have put together a guide specifically for you -- it's a look at Age of Conan from the point of view of a player of World of Warcraft. A lot of things are the same between the two games -- talents are very similar, and there are a lot of comparable mechanics and spells (DoTs, healing, and aggro, of course, all play a role in AoC as well as in Azeroth). But there are a lot of differences, too: Age of Conan's combat is based on real-time, which means you actually press a button to strike, rather than just setting a target and going to town. Instances play a different role, too -- you start out in a private instance cheap wow gold, and can level in a world by yourself for a much longer time than in World of Warcraft. And Funcom has put in quite a few things designed to pull us away from WoW also: mounted combat, a deeper guild system, player cities, and some more PvP mini games. Of course, even if you do go to play some AoC, Wrath of the Lich King will probably bring you back to WoW anyway -- as fun as killing stuff in the Hyborian Age is, it doesn't hold a candle to meeting Arthas Menethil, in our humble opinion buy wow gold. But if you've heard about Age of Conan and are wondering what the difference is, Massively's guide has you covered.

2008年5月19日星期一

The brilliance of Brilliant Glass

Patch 2.4.2 just threw the gem market in for a loop. Because Brilliant Glass now has a chance of giving an epic gem, the reagents required for the Jewelcrafting ability became scarce and prices shot through the roof. Uncommon gems which used to rot in players' banks or languish on the Auction Houses started disappearing into the hands of Jewelcrafters and cunning businessmen (sometimes both). Blood Garnets world of warcraft gold, as nice as they are, never sold for more than 1 Gold apiece, even after Brilliant Glass was introduced. Nowadays, on our server, they're about 10 Gold a pop.

And why not? It's almost impossible to catch it on the Auction Houses now since it's pretty much an instant sale. Even prospecting has gotten some love because even destroying Fel Iron Ore has become useful for a chance to get some uncommon (and sometimes rare) gems. The chain reaction of profit continues as Jewelcrafters prospect cheap wow gold, get uncommon gems, create Brilliant Glass, and sometimes luck out on an epic gem. The irony is, with most servers now having the alchemy lab on the Isle of Quel'danas now open for business, epic gems are starting to find their way into the market, driving prices down.

Crimson Spinels, which many guilds rarely put on sale, used to run as high as 800 to 1,000 Gold on our server. Now they have become among the most commonly bought (for badges) and sold (on the AH) gems buy wow gold, averaging about 300 to 400 Gold. Uncommon gems are now bought as a reagent for Brilliant Glass and almost never cut, driving prices up; while epic gems are becoming more and more available, driving prices down. If you're a Jewelcrafter, don't pass up on the chance to Brilliant Glass every 20 hours! It's a crazy time for Jewelcrafting, but it's never been more fun... or profitable.

2008年5月18日星期日

Peacekeepers who don't keep the peace

A couple of people have posted about the Shattered Sun Peacekeepers slacking off on their jobs lately, quite possibly thanks to something Blizzard fed them in Patch 2.4.2. In their reports, they complain about Peacekeepers attacking them for no reason wow gold, sometimes not even in retaliation for attacking (or defending yourself against) a member of the opposing faction. I can actually empathize with this as I encountered the ill-placed wrath of the Peacekeepers myself when I rezzed my wife's toon in front of the Staging Area. Without having done anything other than rezz, the Peacekeepers promptly charged and made short work of me.

In my experience, I have found that the Peacekeepers around the Shattered Sun Staging Area have been slacking off. In fact, my wife's toon was ganked right in front of the building and the so-called Peacekeepers did absolutely nothing world of warcraft gold. Sensing a bug, my wife wrote a ticket and got a somewhat rude e-mail response saying that -- you guessed it -- it was working as intended. An Alliance guild on my server seemed to be aware of the fact and exploited it to full effect, killing solo players who could seek no refuge under the apathetic -- or even hostile -- Peacekeepers.

According to reports, it's a known bug -- one player even made a video to document it -- but so far Blizzard has turned a blind eye to it. I got a more sympathetic response from my GM who at least mentioned he'd look into the situation. An in-game GM even reset the Peacekeepers in order to see if it would change anything (it didn't). I don't mind gankage... it's part of being on a PvP server cheap wow gold. But when an area is supposedly a sanctuary, you don't expect to go through the hassle of a fight. Even worse, you shouldn't have the Peacekeepers tossing your butt around when you're being peaceful yourself. If things keep going the way they are, The Shattered Sun Offensive should probably downsize or hire some more useful temps.

2008年5月17日星期六

Bush says Saudi oil boost doesn't solve US problem

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 2 hours, 44 minutes ago

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - President Bush said Saudi Arabia's small increase in oil production will not solve soaring U.S. fuel prices wow gold, but he defended the wealthy kingdom Saturday against American lawmakers "screaming the loudest" for Riyadh to open its spigots.
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Bush also encountered bitter Arab criticism that he favors Israel too heavily and was bluntly questioned by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about whether he is serious about peacemaking. Bush said he was "absolutely committed" to reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of his presidency next January. But there was no sign during Bush's five-day Mideast trip that the two sides are moving closer toward an accord.

"It breaks my heart to see the vast potential of the Palestinian people really wasted," Bush said. Pledging the creation of an independent homeland, Bush said "It'll be an opportunity to end the suffering that takes place in the Palestinian territories."

With Israel's occupation of Arab lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war entering its fifth decade, most Palestinians live in dire poverty.

On the last stop of his travels, Bush held a rapid-fire series of diplomatic meetings at this posh Red Sea resort, famous for its brilliantly clear waters and sea-snorkling reefs. After talks with Mubarak buy wow gold, Bush saw Afghan President Hamid Karzai and had dinner with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. On Sunday, he will confer with the leaders of Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq. He said every meeting advances prospects for peace.

As oil prices hit another record high on Friday, Saudi King Abdullah rebuffed Bush's request for higher oil production to take the pressure off prices. The high prices are a political nightmare in a presidential election year for Bush and his would-be Republican successor, Sen. John McCain. Bush said he cautioned the king about the repercussions of skyrocketing prices.

"I said very plainly, I said, `You've got to be concerned about the effects of high oil prices on some of the biggest customers in the world. And not only that, of course, high energy prices (are) going to cause countries like mine to accelerate our move toward alternative energy."

Saudi officials said the kingdom was pumping all the oil that its customers want and that production had been increased by 300,000 barrels a day earlier this month.

"It's something, but it doesn't solve our problem," Bush said. "Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy cheap wow gold, and continue our strategy for the advancement of alternative energies, as well as conservation."

Rather than criticize the Saudis, Bush turned his fire on Democrats back home threatening to kill a $1.4 billion arms sale to Riyadh unless it pumps at least 1 million additional barrels a day.

"One of the interesting things about American politics these days is those who are screaming the loudest for increased production from Saudi Arabia are the very same people who are fighting the fiercest against domestic exploration, against the development of nuclear power, and against expanding refining capacity," Bush said, standing on a manicured lawn overlooking the sea after talks with Karzai.

The president's first appointment was with 80-year-old Mubarak, who has led an authoritarian government in Egypt since 1981. In unusually blunt criticism, Egypt's state-owned press attacked Bush for his speech Thursday before the Israeli Knesset. The media accused Bush of being overly supportive of the Israelis and not mentioning the Palestinians' plight.

"The Torah-inspired speech of Bush raised question marks over the credibility of the U.S. role in the Middle East," wrote Mursi Atallah, the publisher of Al-Ahram, the flagship daily of the state-owned press. "Bush aims to do nothing but appeasing Israel."

Bush, in his address Thursday, showered Israel with praise, strongly reiterated its right to defend itself and only gently urged leaders to "make the hard choices necessary," without mention of concrete steps world of warcraft gold. He did not visit the Palestinian territories nor mention the Palestinians' plight. He spoke of them only in one sentence saying that Israel's 120th anniversary — in 2068 — would see it neighboring an independent Palestinian state.

Bush said Mubarak "wanted to make sure that my approach toward the Middle Eastern peace is firm, and that we work hard to get the Palestinian state defined." Bush said that "I believe we can get a state defined by the end of my presidency, and we'll work hard to achieve that objective."

He repeated those assurances later to Abbas. The Palestinian leader said that "we are working very seriously and very aggressively with the hope that we will be able to achieve this objective before the end of the year."

Bush said he and Abbas agreed on their concern about "radical elements undermining" the U.S.-backed government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.

"This is a defining moment," he said. "It is a moment that requires us to stand strongly with the Saniora government and to support the Saniora government."

The militant group Hezbollah overran Beirut neighborhoods last week in protest of measures aimed at the group by Saniora's government, a display of power that shocked and concerned the West. The violence only ended when Lebanon's Cabinet reversed the measures and Saniora's government reached a deal with the Shiite militant group, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. Bush had planned to meet with Saniora in Egypt on Sunday, but the session was canceled.

2008年5月13日星期二

Activision Blizzard leads the gaming industry

Within the last week, articles on a couple different websites has given us a little look at how much of a juggernaut Activision Blizzard really is on the gaming front.

The first comes from VentureBeat wow gold. Not directly about Activision Blizzard, this article talks a little about the current state of PC gaming. VentureBeat mentions that The NPD Group, a market researching group, has said that online gaming subscriptions generate around $1 billion per year with World of Warcraft leading the pack. I wouldn't use this as proof of PC gaming still going strong as VentureBeat does, but rather that the PC gaming community has shifted toward subscription based multiplayer experiences with consoles taking over single player experiences, for the most part cheap wow gold. You can probably thank piracy for that. That bit is a topic for another time, though.

Our other bit comes from Gaming Today on Filefront. This one is quite directly about Activision Blizzard, mentioning that they've become the number one game publisher around with a net earning of over $2.9 billion. That's a lot of money! Again according to The NPD Group buy wow gold, Activision dominated both the console and handheld markets. Between the Guitar Hero series still going strong and the upcoming release of Wrath of the Lich King, it won't be much of a surprise to anybody if Activision Blizzard comes out on top again in 2009.

2008年5月12日星期一

xtended Maintenance for May 13th and patch 2.4.2

We don't know for sure yet if patch 2.4.2 is hitting the live servers tomorrow, but there's a few clues that may suggest we're going to see it soon. First is that maintenance tomorrow morning will be extended, from 3am-11am PST. Extended maintenance doesn't always mean a patch, sometimes it's for hardware upgrades or other reasons. However wow, if there's patch, there is generally extended maintenance.

But there is one other sign that could be a harbinger of 2.4.2. Tipster Phillip pointed out to us that the PTR servers are currently down. There's hasn't been an official notice posted on the US PTR Forums as of this writing buy wow gold, but there is an official notice of the end of testing on the European forums. Certainly, Blizzard's already had one false stop on the 2.4.2 PTR, but it could be that the second time is a charm.

If you need to jog your memory on 2.4.2's content, check out the initial patch notes here and the undocumented changes (most of which have since been folded into the official test server patch notes) here.

You can also read about the Hunter changes and their fallout here world of warcraft gold, with articles on Growl, Scare Beast, and some of the controversy and math problems surrounding the Growl change.

2008年5月11日星期日

WoW Insider Show: Mother's Day edition live tomorrow

For tomorrow's WoW Insider Show (which you can hear live at 3:30pm EST on WoW Radio), we're doing something a little special for Mother's Day: we've got mothers! Amanda Dean is actually bringing her mother on the show, and Ms. Emrys, (aka SpaceLady) is a WoW player herself, so we'll chat with her about what it's like to come to games via World of Warcraft. Robin Torres will also be joining us world of warcraft gold, and she's got little ones of her own, so she'll tell us what it's like to be a WoW player while also running your own little "guild" in real life. And Turpster will return after his absence last week -- all we can say about him is that he's a bad mother... shut yo' mouth.

Plus, we definitely can't ignore all the Wrath of the Lich King info that dropped last night, so we'll definitely be talking about vehicles, Death Knights, the 10/25 man instances, and all of the other huge information that Blizzard dropped on us like a ton of level 80 bricks. And as usual (as if all that wasn't enough), we'll have reader mail, which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com buy wow gold, and we'll be chatting in IRC as well at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel.

Whew! It's a mother of a show. Make sure to tune in tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, at 3:30pm EST over on WoW Radio. See you there.

2008年5月10日星期六

Arcane Brilliance: Level 70 checklist

Every week, Arcane Brilliance works its way into your spell-rotation, right between Fireball two and Fireball three. It has a zero second cast time, doesn't trigger the global cooldown, costs no mana, does ridiculous amounts of damage, creates no threat, and is entirely unresistable. Yes, I'm aware that's not a word. Yes, I understand that "irresistible" is the grammatically correct alternative. Yes, I like to make up words. Also, apparently Arcane Brilliance is the greatest spell ever, and should probably make up your entire spell rotation, and not just a part of it. The good news? I just saved you space on your action bars.

If forced, at gunpoint, to identify the most daunting aspect of the World of Warcraft experience, I know exactly what I'd say. It wouldn't be starting the game, as Blizzard has done a wonderful job of making entry into the game itself incredibly user-friendly. It wouldn't be beginning to raid, as hopefully when you go into your first raid, your guild will be fully aware that it is your first raid and won't expect too much of you, so you can participate without pressure.

No, I'd have to say the single most daunting part of the game happens at a very specific point, and that point is the moment you ding level 70.

Perhaps you don't realize it at that exact instant. For most, the moment of realization comes later. Perhaps it happens when you hop into your first Arena match and die two-and-a-half seconds later. Perhaps it happens when you get thrown into a Karazhan pick-up-group and notice half of your spells are being resisted by Attumen the Huntsman. Perhaps it happens while walking around Shattrath, and you notice a Gnome Mage, ostensibly at the same level as you, wandering around in full tier 6 gear wow gold, sporting a mana pool twice as large as yours and around a kajillion spell damage. Perhaps it happens when your guild leader tells you no, you can't come help on Gruul, because you have no spell hit rating, and you don't even know what that means.

So what are you to do? How do you turn your mismatched greens and quest-reward blues into gear that will get you a raid spot? Read on after the jump buy wow gold, and find out how to start down the road to becoming epic.

Arcane Brilliance: Level 70 checklist

Every week, Arcane Brilliance works its way into your spell-rotation, right between Fireball two and Fireball three. It has a zero second cast time, doesn't trigger the global cooldown, costs no mana, does ridiculous amounts of damage, creates no threat, and is entirely unresistable. Yes, I'm aware that's not a word. Yes, I understand that "irresistible" is the grammatically correct alternative. Yes, I like to make up words. Also, apparently Arcane Brilliance is the greatest spell ever, and should probably make up your entire spell rotation, and not just a part of it. The good news? I just saved you space on your action bars.

If forced, at gunpoint, to identify the most daunting aspect of the World of Warcraft experience, I know exactly what I'd say. It wouldn't be starting the game, as Blizzard has done a wonderful job of making entry into the game itself incredibly user-friendly. It wouldn't be beginning to raid, as hopefully when you go into your first raid, your guild will be fully aware that it is your first raid and won't expect too much of you, so you can participate without pressure.

No, I'd have to say the single most daunting part of the game happens at a very specific point, and that point is the moment you ding level 70.

Perhaps you don't realize it at that exact instant. For most, the moment of realization comes later. Perhaps it happens when you hop into your first Arena match and die two-and-a-half seconds later. Perhaps it happens when you get thrown into a Karazhan pick-up-group and notice half of your spells are being resisted by Attumen the Huntsman. Perhaps it happens while walking around Shattrath, and you notice a Gnome Mage, ostensibly at the same level as you, wandering around in full tier 6 gear, sporting a mana pool twice as large as yours and around a kajillion spell damage. Perhaps it happens when your guild leader tells you no, you can't come help on Gruul, because you have no spell hit rating, and you don't even know what that means.

So what are you to do? How do you turn your mismatched greens and quest-reward blues into gear that will get you a raid spot? Read on after the jump, and find out how to start down the road to becoming epic.

2008年5月6日星期二

WoW Insider Weekly

Looking for something to read. Look no further -- here's the best of our weekly features from the last seven days wow gold, presented in a handy roundup format. If you missed it the first time, don't make the same mistake twice.

Guildwatch: The aftermath

The messiest part of guild drama comes after it happens. And when the bank has been ninja-d the last gquit has been typed in, and the last wipe happens -- that's when Guildwatch appears.

Shifting Perspectives: Druids just wanna have funCaw!

Some Druids in the Penny Arcade alliance pull off a little fight-or-flight terror, The Birds-style. He Said, She Said: HypermasculinityAmanda and David wonder why your mage is so incredibly buff. Build Shop: Shaman 18/43/0Pound for pound cheap wow gold, one of the best melee DPS dealers in the game -- the Enhancement Shaman enters the Build Shop.

More great weekly features after the break, including an in-depth look at Cooking, and a must-read post for every Hunter.

2008年5月5日星期一

Scientists make a real-life mechanical squirrel

This one is just barely related to World of Warcraft, but it's just too good to pass up: behold, Engineers of all races. Our real-life scientists are working on your favorite companion. Animal behavior scientists at Hampshire College have created a real-life mechanical squirrel.

And "Rocky," as they call him, is a lot more helpful than the noncombat version in Azeroth -- apparently by using the robot squirrel to mimic real-life squirrel behavior, they can "decode" what squirrels are saying cheap wow gold. And supposedly that will help them figure out the same behavior (or at least parallels) in humans.

Their mechanical squirrel looks a little more realistic than ours -- they must have added some wool in with the Malachite and the Copper Modulator. But if science can do this with a mechanical squirrel, just think what could be accomplished with an exploding sheep!