World of Warcraft : warcraft

Lich King Class Qualms

Shell_Scriptz — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:02:04 GMT

I got my Beta Opt-In e-mail at work. With shifty eyes I looked towards my co-workers all huddled in a small smoke-filled room, each of us typing away on our keyboards with research articles open on the conference table. Looking left and right, I clicked the print button. Sprinting to the printer, I grabbed for my golden ticket. Without packing up my personal things, I ducked out the door, work forgotten. Reminiscing about Gene Wilder’s crazy antics, I whistled the whole way home.

While Beta-Testing, something dawned on me. I was waiting for a quest mob to spawn so that I could whirlwind its face off when I thought to myself that I was experiencing a parody of life. World of Warcraft to me at this time was a metaphor for how everything should be.

During the days of Vanilla WoW, most things were taken for granted on my realm. People were still discovering what the game had to offer. With the first expansion pack “The Burning Crusade” most addicts complained about things that they felt should be changed. Thus, with so much complaining going on, the game itself was changed around to suit the needs of the demanding public, and WoW matured. It grew from the industry standard. It continued raising the bar. The users defined the game as it changed. Blizzard provided the content while the users dictated how their characters would interact with that content. Surely, Earth would be a better place if it could be changed accordingly.

If world governments would open up their doors to the demanding “users” or citizens, and start taking suggestions, I think that we would literally witness a dramatic change. Don’t get discouraged, I’m sure your democracy is better than any other place in the world; take it from WoW however, and know that it can always get better, and more balanced. A shining example of this is how Blizzard released a “Class Feedback” section on the forums, which quickly (nearly instantly) grew from a single post on each official class forum to 75-100 pages in length, full of posts of people who were eager for change to their class. Sure enough, suggestions from each and every post were taken into consideration, and many of the more frequent suggestions were actually implemented. Fury Warriors for example, in the latest build of the Beta, received two very important buffs to their class: PvP Viability and PvE Effectiveness. They can now buff the entire raid to do a ton more damage, and compete in arenas with the best of the arms cookie-cutters. Some people might suggest that changes like these are supposed to happen during the event of an expansion pack—but I disagree. Changes like this happened because the WoW citizens wanted it. They spoke out, and eager ears listened.

So keep demanding change, brothers and sisters—please give a 10, 25 or 50 word donation to your respective forum, and don’t let the flamers get you down.

Pally, Shaman & Druid: Why Hybrid Classes Don't Work

deaddrwho — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:55:07 GMT

There's an interesting editorial up at Kotaku Australia discussing the problems with hybrid classes, such as the Shaman and Paladin, and why ultimately they don't work:

People aren't looking for a class that can't excel at anything. Sure, players of hybrids will say they're fine being a lesser substitute, but when push comes to shove, no one wants to be left behind because a pure class does better.

The writer also says he'll be doing a follow-up, suggesting a replacement for the "Holy Trinity".

Pros and cons of WoW powerlevelling, part 3

deaddrwho — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:04:12 GMT

Kotaku AU has posted the last part to its "Pros and Cons of WoW Powerlevelling" series.

The articles explore one player's experiences with a professional powerlevelling service:

"Every minute of my day was consumed spying on my Paladin - wasted time in hindsight. I didn't care so much about what level it was any more. All I concerned myself with was getting my account back in one piece."

Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
Link to Part 3

Xbox 360 Controller for World of Warcraft

Phayder — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:48:56 GMT

Blue Orb unveiled its new free software package on Wednesday, only available through Xfire – SwitchBlade. The SwitchBlade software will allow Xbox 360 gamers to configure their controllers to work with their PC, specifically for the game World of Warcraft.

Whilst World of Warcraft is currently the only supported game, Blue Orb have plans to add other games as time goes by.

As well as supporting the standard wired Xbox 360 controller it also supports the wireless controller as long as you have a windows-supported wireless receiver.

In addition to its 'plug and play' pre-configured options, SwitchBlade is a highly customizable application. Experienced World of Warcraft players get extensive opportunities to reconfigure button mappings to match their unique style of play.

We all know that World of Warcraft is popular, but a lot of gamers are just hooked on the console controller experience.

This software has the potential to drag in gamers who may have been waiting for console-like solutions and answers to the control aspects of World of Warcraft.

The new software is available here.

Import WoW Armory Characters to Facebook

Tarinth — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 05:29:54 GMT

You can now import World of Warcraft characters to your Facebook profile. This uses the new Facebook Platform technology, and seamlessly gathers character information from the Armory. No additional accounts beyond your Facebook login are required.