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It's Saturday again, and that means it's time for WoW Insider Weekly, our weekly look at all of our great weekly and bi-weekly features here at WoW Insider. Our columnists work hard all to create great weekly content, and every Saturday we put it all in one post and serve it up to you on a big silver platter*.
So what do you do when Nightbane is giving your guild a nightmare? My personal preference is to tackle some content you can handle, whether that be running through the old world raids just for fun, or, more likely, trying to take down some of the overworld bosses. Of course, if you're stuck on Midnight and Attumen, there's not much more raid content to go back to seriously. But if you're having trouble on a boss that early, odds are you need better gear anyway -- wipe on Attumen a few times, and then split the raid into groups and go run some heroics. Always have an extra option planned for your raids, too, because there's no need to bang your head on a boss you can't beat -- even if you just wipe on Gruul once, you've gotten that experience. Then take your raid back to Karazhan for more practice and more gear. Eventually you'll hit a point where people want to keep trying (because you'll be so close), and then guild progression is on.
But while that's a solid tactic, it's not the only one -- I've seen guild leaders run social activities, declare "bounties" on bosses or instances, and even offer to pay repairs just to try a raid boss out for a night. How do you bring a guild that's lost its game back into the raiding gauntlet?
No, this week I'm not featuring WoWspaces that have lots of good information or reaction on the upcoming patch. Considering we're featuring oodles of 2.3 news lately, I thought it would be fun to show off 2.3 WoWspaces. (I'll let you figure out which one is the .3 of a WoWspace) These are some of the generally off-the-beaten-desk variety pictures that we get. That said, on with the show!
The first WoWspace this week (pictured above) features one thing we haven't seen featured in a WoWspace until this week -- feet! This WoWspace belongs to Bork. He writes:
While playing WoW on a TV is not a new idea, It did take me quite a while to get it to the point where I wasn't leaning over my coffee table the whole time -- at least, not without a big ugly book for a mouse pad. I had to scale up the interface in the config so I could actually read the tiny text in the interface. (the GUI stops you at one) Bartender 3 also helped since scaling up the interface made the bars render off the side of the screen.
I have my keyboard all taped up to a product from laptopdesk.net. I tried many things but this was the lightest and easiest. I also couldn't stand gaming with the wireless products out there so I have a standard wired keyboard and mouse (lots more blue tape holding it down to the carpet).
Anyway, just wanted to share in case someone else is trying to get this to work in their living room. I actually gave up and moved everything into my bedroom twice because of a sore back, but now it works well.
For those who are interested in the other non-traditional WoWspaces for this week, click on the link below and let's continue on!
Anyone who has ever played World of Warcraft for any length of time knows that the game is strewn with pop culture references and goofy things you do or receive. There are quests that remind us of Nintendo (Mario, Luigi and Link in Un'Goro Crater), references to songs ("Deep Ocean, Vast Sea", the now-gone male Troll /silly about "killed two Dwarves") and comics (like "Doomulus Prime" in Silithus) from everyday life. As a Rogue, I've pick-pocketed many silly items (Gnome Effigies and Steamy Romance Novels) and there are even some fairly silly debuffs in game like the "Bad Poetry" one you get from the actors backstage near the Opera event. (For those who haven't run Kara, "Bad Poetry" puts you to sleep.)
With all the many things in game to enjoy (aside from the just the game itself) our topic this morning is on the sillier aspects of the game. For me, one really big stand-out was when I was doing the Warlock quest in Felwood and summoned El Pollo Grande <The Black Chicken of Death> -- a great big crazy chicken who promptly tried to eat my face. Another one that still makes me giggle is any time a new guild-mate runs through the Bone Wastes and has to do the Fumping quests. (Complete with Dune references, of course) Dwarves that like to bang a drum? I can get behind that!
How about you? What are some real-life references, or just general goofiness in WoW that's made you stop and laugh out loud? Did you guys screen-shot them too, or is that just me?
In the newest video from Nyhm, creator of Can't PuG KZ and Death Knight Spree, we're treated to his newest spin on things going on in WoW. This time around Nyhm actually decided to jump from his beloved Warlock and give us the skinny from another caster class -- the Mage! This one features a parody of a 50 cent song and some pretty witty observations about Mage group utility and abilities. We all know Mages are the best snack machines in game, but you have to admit that Nyhm's served this tasty Mage treat up with style.
We have a ton of great weekly columns here at WoW Insider, about nearly every aspect of the game. Starting today and every Saturday, we're going to round them all up for you in one big post, so that, at a glance, you can see what our weekly features are talking about.
BigRedKitty: Patch notes exclusive! BRK somehow got the patch notes a day early! And apparently humans are skinnable and Fel Reavers are trainable. But they get those bear models.
/silly: Dire Straits The new Bear tanking form is a little excessive if you ask me.
Yes folks, 2.2 has gone live and most of you who are reading this have already been greeted by the lightning-fast login screen that was a result of of the new patch disabling all your add-ons.
Fear not, you can "Enable Out-Of-Date Addons" and most of them will return to life. Some however, most notably those that affect unit frames, may not behave as you would like them to. As a result, a lot of you are hitting the add-on sites right now. The add-on site I visit regularly hasn't moved this slow since 2.0 went live. The hamsters powering the servers of these sites are near collapse, as pictured. Here are a few notes and tips to get you through the next 48 hours and back in the game.
At the time of this writing, voice chat isn't enabled yet on the launch servers. Don't ask in General. Don't shout from the rooftops. It's not online yet. It probably will be soon.
Be kind to the server rodents. There are lots of good add-on sites on the internet, and if we can distribute the traffic a little bit, it will make the experience less arduous for everybody. Curse seems to be getting hit pretty hard at the moment. If it's not responding or too slow, don't forget WoW Interface, or ui.IncGamers.com.
If all else fails you might luck-out with Google or by looking in the readme.txt of the add-on in question to find the author's personal site.
There's always strength in numbers. Many hands make light work. All those folks you've bragged your addons to are likely looking for the update too. Share information.
Just yesterday in fact, I was at my local computer store after having a bite of lunch to make my semi-regular browse of their wares. One of the items I saw that screamed "Buy me! Please!" was a Zboard Fang. I'd seen them at EB before, but they were always hanging on a rung so high you'd have to be Michael Jordan standing on the back of a Tauren to reach them. These Fangs were close enough to the ground for a gnome to reach so I picked up the box and had a look. I am definitely a keyboard guy. I hardly ever use the mouse at all – except to click totems on occasion with my shaman. The allure of the Fang and it's programmability was strong though. I only set it down and walked away when I started to think about how long it would take me to get used to it.
Today while following a story tip, I found a proverbial bee's nest of forum activity about one of the Fang's competitors, the Logitech G15. Although the G15 has a full QWERTY keyboard and and adds a programmable LCD display, it's core function and purpose is the same. It allows you to define programmable keys for in-game functions.
The question arises (and has arisen many, many, many times before) whether these products are legal for in-game use. The answer from more than one blue poster in the previous link is: "YES! They are legal!" Blizzard draws the line between right and wrong not at what keyboard (or accessory) you use, but what you use it for. A button to open your bags is not going to get your account banned. A timed macro to run around in a circle and kill everything in your path while you watch Twister in the next room will get you banned, because you're essentially "botting" at that point. The line seems to be drawn between attended and unattended play, but common sense is clearly the watch word here.
What other hardware input device toys do you use in your day-to-day play? What do you think about these Zboard and Logitech products that are marketed so aggressively to the MMOG market? Your comments are key!
Hey WoW Insider! I decided to send in mine. It doesn't have any high level stuff like Deadly Boss Mods or CT Raid because my main is only 57. A lot of my UI can be "closed" for times when I am just hangin' out in the cities (mostly my combat mods). Nothing special about my resolution. The standard 1280x1024 on my 19" monitor.
That said, for a full listing of the mods Luminesce used in this pretty cool UI, join us after the jump!
Tomorrow, if all the prophecies come true, Patch 2.2.0 will finally arrive to a server near you. A subset of the server population will experience the new voice chat to test out as the service is slowly phased to the rest of the population.
Many of us who have the privilege of being in "good" guilds have been yakking away happily on Ventrilo or Teamspeak (or even Google Talk or Skype in smaller groups) for quite some time. But to the "small guild" community, tomorrow and the days that follow may represent one of the biggest milestones in game development since the launch.
To those who are uninitiated to the world of voice, let me offer you a few tips to get you through your introduction to this wonderful new vehicle of gameplay.
So we've featuredgreatvideos made by Mike Spiff Booth based off of some excellent Johnathan Coulton songs in the past, and this one is no exception.
His songs definitely seem to lend themselves very well to visual interpretation due to their witty, descriptive lyrics. At any rate, this song is in the same vein as all the others, so if you liked them definitely give it a watch!
I was just sitting in Ironforge a minute ago trying to peddle my enchants. The members of the guild I'm in were sitting around shooting the breeze about Burning Crusade instances. Somebody remarked on BRK's article earlier today about hunters "once being in demand" in Blackrock Depths, and I chimed in that as a subtlety rogue I've felt a little left-out of some of the Burning Crusade content. It seems from my vantage point that hunters and mages own the vast majority of the Burning Crusade instances because those of us who have to be in physical contact with our targets who don't have the benefit of plate armour are getting the bejeezus beaten out of us in this series of instances.
While I can see the progression that Blizzard has taken, and I can understand the necessity for encounters to increase in difficulty I'm having a really difficult time finding the willpower to flush my carefully crafted rogue build down the toilet that I spent so much time perfecting.
So let's shift gears for a moment to solo instances. Yes, we've talked about them before. I think that with the right implementation though, that we could kill a number of birds with one stone.
How many crappy rogues have you met in-game? Ok, put your hands down. We can substitute any class into that question. There are lots of players with no skills floating around. We've all seen warriors who don't sunder, mages who don't realize they can summon (food and water), and even shamans who don't know what a totem is. Yes, I'm serious, I've seen every one of those.
So here's my idea - with apologies if somebody else already thought of it first. I know Dan brushed gently against it a few months ago. Why not make an Academy style instance where players could go solo, maybe every ten levels, and be taught in "live fire" situations how to use the skills they've acquired in the last ten levels. Loot would have the benefit of being class-specific (or at the very least class-appropriate), and lunchbox letdown would be next to non-existent. The only obvious problem to me, is that the gear would almost have to be Bind on Pickup, and they'd probably want to make it so once you beat the last boss that you couldn't come back until you graduated to the next bracket.
Then everybody would have something to do, nobody would feel completely useless, and best of all it would have a positive impact on the skill level of the players on our realms and in our guilds. What do you think?
This week we've got a UI to share that has been some time in the making. Bixxi sent me the first draft of his UI in the first of August, but then sent along several more versions as the weeks went by. After a change of pace (and guilds) for him, he sent along the current incarnation of this lovely UI. I suspect he'll probably keep tweaking it even further, but so far so good!
For more screen shots of Bixxi's nifty wee tiny UI and all the information on his choice of mods, join us past the jump!
Episode 3 of the WoW Insider Show is now available to listen over at WoW Radio and also as a podcast on iTunes (wow, those iTunes reviews are harsh, aren't they? Send us your suggestions on how to make the show better at theshow@wowinsider.com). I was on board this time around, as was our own Amanda Rivera, and WoW Radio's ever popular Turpster and Alris from the World of Theorycraft.
We chatted about all of our popular posts from last week, including whether rogues stealthing around constitutes an exploit, Matthew's post about trojans, and what exactly Blizzard's Hydra is. We hit on lots more, too, and I made everyone give their prediction for the patch 2.2 release-- "this week," "next week," or "later." I believe "this week" won among the four of us (it's what I said), but considering what the CMs are saying lately, I have to admit I'm second guessing myself-- we may not see the patch tomorrow morning after all.
And don't forget that we do this live every Saturday at 3:30pm EST over at WoW Radio. Tune in next week for yet another episode of WoW Insider in audio form-- we call it the WoW Insider Show.
We talk a lot about the features we want in the game. What about the features we don't want? I don't know about anybody else, but I've been watching the news surrounding the release of Everquest 2 Update 38 with horror. Read with me from the press release.
"Upon reaching level 20, you'll be able to access new appearance item slots on the inventory window! Have favorite pieces that are an important part of your style? You can now keep wearing them for looks while continuing to upgrade your primary gear!"
Are they out of their freaking mind?! Sure, I like to look good as much as the next player, but let's shift to World of Warcraft for a minute and consider the ramifications of such a change in our world, especially to our PvP-loving brethren. Do you really want to go into a battleground or an arena match and see a paladin standing there smiling at you buck-naked (perhaps wielding a Pitchfork, and wearing overalls for effect) when in fact he's actually wearing a full Tier 6 set?
Rattlesnakes have a rattle for a reason. Cobras have their distinctive hood for the same reason. You should be able to look at a player in-game and be able to with some degree of certainty be able to assess their threat to you. I don't think it's such a wonderful idea to allow people to masquerade around as noobs when in fact they may count themselves among the best-equipped players in the game. How many times do you actually target somebody or mouse-over them to see their class? So if you see a dwarf in a robe you think priest, right? If a change like this was ever implemented in World of Warcraft, that could be a deadly assumption. I've got nothing against the Orbs of Deception and Savory Deviate Delight and other such items. Their effects are temporary, and easy to spot. Hallowe'en should be contained to one day of the year.
You may wonder why am I freaking out over this when it's not even something going in World of Warcraft. I'm freaking out about it because this is a novel idea that I think will catch on in the MMOG genre. As Blizzard looks to add hairstyles and other cosmetic changes in the future, Sony has approached the same issue from an interesting and novel direction. This is one direction I hope Blizzard never takes. What things do you hope Blizzard never introduces in the game?
[Special thanks to Olandu from "Guardians of Azeroth" on Gnomeregan for being my photo model for this article!]
It's Saturday again, and that means it's time for WoW Insider Weekly, our weekly look at all of our great weekly and bi-weekly features here at WoW Insider. Our columnists work hard all to create great weekly content, and every Saturday we put it all in one post and serve it up to you on a big silver platter*.![[Lady Vashj]](https://web.archive.org/web/20071012120258im_/http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2007/10/vashj_wow_225.jpg)
We have a ton of great weekly columns here at WoW Insider, about nearly every aspect of the game. Starting today and every Saturday, we're going to round them all up for you in one big post, so that, at a glance, you can see what our weekly features are talking about.
I was just sitting in Ironforge a minute ago trying to peddle my enchants. The members of the guild I'm in were sitting around shooting the breeze about Burning Crusade instances. Somebody remarked on 
We talk a lot about the features we want in the game. What about the features we don't want? I don't know about anybody else, but I've been watching the news surrounding the release of Everquest 2 Update 38 with horror. Read with me from 
