Monthly Archives: December 2009

Meet Me in Azeroth probably doesn’t qualify as machinima, but is still fantastic viewing for WoW Moviewatch. This video features a pair of guys rocking out to how much they prefer Azeroth to the doldrums of real life. I’m forced to agree with the sentiment, even if the musical style isn’t quite my taste. The video is clearly meant to be comedy and parody, so I totally forgive their heavy use of auto-tune. Hell, I might even have auto-tuned it a bit more thoroughly. I think the style has shown to be very effective for this kind of tongue-in-cheek humor before, and it totally had its place here. The lyrics of the video do a good job of speaking to the universal WoW experience. They also manage to give some shout-outs to certain factions among the community. For example, they poke fun at a desire to return to “ye olden days of WoW,” back before Burning Crusade even came out. Ultimately, it was a fun video, and I give the chaps a tip of the hat.

When we last talked about this on the podcast, I said we’d basically have to wait and see how it all worked, but now that players have had their hands on the Dungeon Finder out on the live realms for a while, they’re learning a few more tricks and tips about how to use it. As Rohan brings up over on the WoW Ladies LJ, it’s easy enough to keep a good player once you’ve found them through the system: as long as none of you drop group once you’re done with an instance, you can go back in and run as many as you want. Unfortunately, you can’t friend them yet (hopefully that will show up whenever Battle.net functionality does), but the comments on that post point out that if you both sign up for an unpopular instance at the same time, chances are good you’ll end up in the same group together (of course, that requires coordination, but maybe you can set up a time out of game). More tips and tricks for the new system after the break. Other tips we’ve heard: finding an instance as tank or healer will go even faster than trying to get in one as DPS, so if you can specialize into a more useful role and just want to grind out instances fast, do that. Damage meters are supposedly broken — they haven’t figured

Patch 3.3 is only barely out on the live realms, and already, there’s a controversy with the new epic ammo recipes. Lassirra says that hunters are concerned that the requirements to make the ammo are just too high. Blizzard had promised to make getting epic ammo easier, and this still has the requirement of having a high level engineer, with the extra charge of requiring a Goblin engie for the bullets, and a Gnomish engie for the arrows. And even after you find a 450 Engineer in the right spec, you still have to get a couple of Crystallized Shadow or Earth together. That doesn’t sound “easier” to me, either. Let’s not forget, however, that this is cutting edge (no pun intended) ammo — this isn’t the kind of vendor junk you just fire while leveling. It’s a 30 point DPS gain from the previous high level ammo, and that kind of increase probably does justify a little tougher requirement to make. Of course, it’ll probably work out so that other classes get that increase normally through their itemization, but that’s just the way it works for hunters. If you want the new ammo, you’ll have to find an friendly engie of the right spec with the right skill Honored with the new Ashen Verdict faction,

I support World of Warcraft’s paid services. I think they’re good for the game. I think a lot of the options that the services provide extend our interest in the game, allowing us to play when we might have otherwise lost interest. What I do worry about is how expensive everything is when you start to add them all up. I suspect I’m like the average player who has more than a few max level characters at this point, which means wanting to avail of paid services on all of them could get a little pricey. Let’s take character transfers, for instance. If I wanted to transfer all my characters to a server where my friends play (why would I want to move just one?) it would cost me a hefty sum. Add to that the fact that my wife plays wherever I play so we multiply that hefty sum by two. Imagine if I wanted to change my characters’ races to those combinations that were previously unavailable come Cataclysm… how much would that add up to? It doesn’t take an accountant to see that it could cost a small fortune. $25 isn’t a paltry sum. Specially not in these hard times. Neither is 20€, £15, or ₩24,000, which is what most services such as paid race change and realm transfers cost. Name changes are the most affordable