Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.
When you can't log in to World of Warcraft, do you get your fix from game sites instead? Gamers on the Street visited with two chatty young players from Zul'jin this morning about their WoW reading and research habits. Deathrowcame (70 Undead Warlock) and Docevil (70 Undead Rogue) were both on alts when we met up, but both popped over to Orgrimmar on their 70s to finish our conversation and take a group shot, as well as to share a few tidbits about life on Zul'Jin.
Be sure to drop by the comments at the end of the article and share your own favorite sites and sources.
Gamers on the Street: Hi guys, thanks for sharing. We're curious about people who like to read and research their characters and game info a lot. Are you both the studious type? Deathrowcame: Yeah, I am. I got a 70 'lock that I bought, so I have to research it – no, I'm joking,. LOL Docevil: I read up on what abilities I can get and what the easiest specialization is to use to level. Deathrowcame: I surf wowhead and thottbot daily to research gear for my level and class and what quest my class should do.
Cooking is a secondary tradeskill that most players should strongly consider learning, and maximizing. The buffs that many of the foods award can be quite helpful, and aside from damage buffs, there are also healing buffs, tank buffs, and food for hunter and warlock pets, among other yummy treats. If you rely on purchasing the foods from the auction house, you'll find your consumables bill soaring upward.
You can also make a profit from cooking, especially regarding pet food. Because many players are stubborn and won't learn any of the secondary skills, you can sell your dishes for a hefty price.
Still, if you don't fall madly in love with cooking, searching high and low for the latest recipe and farming to your favorite tunes, then you might have some trouble and confusion when trying to reach 375. This week, Insider Trader will take an in-depth look at the easiest path to cooking 375, avoiding fishing altogether. Although they go hand-in-hand, they can be done separately, and many cooks do not want to become fishermen.
Yes, it's only midnight, and already the wackiness has started. These people just couldn't wait to do something a little silly on the first day of April.
Reader Tim let us know that Baron Soosdon has quit his job at Machinima.com and stopped making machinima in general. He's said goodbye with (what else?) a Linkin Park video.
Probably not. But if you did guess March 25th as the date patch 2.4 was released you might have an email from our own Elizabeth Harper in your inbox in the next few days. So how did you all get to guess March 25th as the magical date?
Some of you might have just pulled the date out of a hat. I can't really blame you if you did, since Blizzard has been notorious for releasing things "when they're ready." WoWWiki even has a page for the often-quoted blue response to people asking when the patch will be released: "soon."
Of course, if you took my route, you would have hunkered down and done some good old math and figured out that the trend was leading towards a March 25th release date. I was, ahem, right. /dance /cheer /drinkaglassofcelebratorywine
Now of course the real test of any mathematical prediction is to see if it holds up over time. When the next patch is announced (if there is one), we'll take another mathematical look at the numbers and try to predict when that patch will go live.
All in all, it was quite a fun little contest. Many thanks to the over 900 of you who entered. Check your mailboxes, you might have won!
For those wondering, the image is the "I Win" button they'll be putting in patch 2.5.We know this is going to happen because of all the nerfs in 2.4... (I'm kidding, but flame away.)
I've spent the day collecting patch mirrors for everyone. Some may require a short free registration. All of them are sources I, and others, use and trust. However with that said, we can't be responsible if something goes wrong. But I've never heard of that happening.
There are more lists available at WoWWiki and Nihilum. However, there are several sites on there that I haven't been able to test or havne't used before - so your mileage may vary.
One of the many excellent sessions in the ScreenBurn track at SXSW Interactive this year, the "How Gamers Are Adopting the Wiki Way" panel featured George Pribul (lead admin of WoWWiki.com), April "CuppaJo" Burba (Community Manager for NCsoft's Tabula Rasa), Angelique Shelton (GM of Wikia Gaming at Wikia Inc), and Jake McKee (Principal at Ant's Eye View) talking about the symbiotic relationship between gamers and wikis. Interesting factoid: WoWWiki is now the second largest English-language wiki in the world behind Wikipedia. At 3 million unique users per month, a full half of English-speaking WoW players visit WoWWiki every month. Head on over to our MMO-besotted sister site Massively for the complete writeup.
Besides news here at WoW Insider, one of my favorite places on the web is over at WoWWiki. The site is a virtual treasure trove of World of Warcraft lore, class information, formulas, and strategies. Back in October the site passed 45,000 articles, and today it stands around 53,000 articles. That's A LOT of content, much more then anyone could possibly hope to read.
Where does all this come from?
The way community wiki's work (wikis like WoWWiki and Wikipedia) is that everyone who reads them can effectively edit anything in them. If you're looking at the strategy for Zul'Jin and see something that's not right, or that needs to be added, you can do it right on the spot. Of course you have to sign up for an account and make sure what you're putting in is correct, but that takes all of five minutes. User submitted content is critical to the success of a wiki, and WoWWiki is (as I'm sure most of our readers would agree) one of the most successful game wikis out there.
Kirkburn from the great WoWWiki (I like their one line description of us, and yes we do link to them all the time) writes to tell us that they have cracked 45,000 articles on their site as of last night. From Arathi Basin to Zul'jin, they now have over 45,000 articles on everything having to do with World of Warcraft. Congrats to them!
I've only ever created one over there (and it was for a joke), but all of us here at WoW Insider have nothing but respect for all the diligent archivists over at the Wiki. They have a terrific resource over there, and it is as clear an authority as they come, especially on a lot of the lore and background information on the game. Great job, all, on 45,000 articles, and keep up the good work.
Kirkburn also tells there are updates due over there as well-- sometime before the end of the year, they're planning an update to MediaWiki 1.11. And they're also going to incorporate more with the Wikia network, which runs all kinds of niche wikis like this one, by creating a single logon across all the sites. Sounds like things are jumping over at WoWWiki, and we're glad to hear it.
Apparently when Wowhead's million dollar sale hit the news, other website folks paid attention. First WoWDigger announced their bid to get in on the action, and now another site, Lootables (tipped to us by Birgitte, one of the creators), is going to give making an item database a go.
My first reaction was "who needs another one?" but after messing around with the site for a few minutes, it doesn't look half bad. You've got your standard item search, and one feature there I've never seen on other sites is the ability to do searches by what drops in each dungeon-- yes, on Wowhead and Thottbot, you can look up dungeon bosses to see what they drop, but whenever I'm trying to figure out what instance to run, the first thing I do is check WoWWiki to click on each of the boss names in one place and see what they drop. Having everything in the dungeon at a glance is pretty nice. (Update:Wowhead can do this) The other big item of note is that Lootables actually links to each of the other databases in its listings. I didn't see a place to put comments (which are a huge draw on the other databases), but considering all the comments about the item are just a few clicks away, maybe they decided they didn't need them. You can also use the colored boxes near each item to "store" it in a dialogue on the right sidebar, and the site remembers what items you put there, so item comparison is super easy. Very nice feature.
And the last thing I noticed that separates Lootables from other databases is that they've actually created leveling guides for all the professions, complete with links to all the recipes and items you need. Creating an item listing is one thing, but showing clearly how to use those items is definitely helpful.
Birgitte also said she was looking for feedback, so if you guys have it, let's hear it. The only real suggestion I have is to come up with some way for us to see the items-- so far, the best these databases have all come up with is to use user-submitted pictures, but surely there must be some way to both avoid legal pitholes with Blizzard and show us what the items look like.
Veteran readers of the blog will remember when the world first of this baby dropped, but now that everyone's 70, maybe you too can get a raid rolling in Naxxaramas, and obtain for yourself the legendary (literally) weapon of Medivh.
Name: Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian Type: Legendary Staff Damage/Speed: 130-243 / 2.90 (64.4 DPS) Abilties:
There are actually four different versions of the staff-- Warlock, Mage, Priest, and Druid. You can see all of them over at WoW Wiki-- they all increase spell damage and/or healing of the equipper (the Druid one increases AP in feral forms as well), but they also have a party bonus, too. The Druid gives 11mp5, the Mage increases spell crit strike of the entire party, the Warlock grants 33 spell damage to the party, and the Priest gives 62 healing to everyone in the party.
Additionally, all of the versions will do something very special: create a portal to Karazhan. Nowdays, players go to Karazhan all the time, so it's not that big a deal, but back when this staff came out, no one had ever been there, and so cracking open a portal was pretty cool
And the staff grants various amounts of Stamina, Intellect or Spirit, depending on the version you have.
Unfortunately, the stats are no longer that great-- they're incredible for level 60, but at level 70, it's pretty easy to come by equivalent (or even better) stats, and therefore, not really worth the trouble to obtain the staff. But then again, there is an immense amount of value in the lore of this item, considering that it was owned by Medivh himself.
Why, might you ask, does something so awesome look so plain? Don't judge a book by its cover, son-- that model, though plain, matches the models used in Warcraft 2 and 3. This is a legendary item, and real power is inside. Also, spectral birds sometimes appear flying around the staff. So that's kind of cool.
Also, the Shade of Aran (who is of course Medivh's father) will be kind of surprised if you show up to fight him with this thing on
How to Get It: In many ways, this is the final goal of shipping WoW. To get the item, you have to first collect 40 Splinters of Atiesh, which drop from different bosses in Naxxaramas, which means you need to run the place a few times. Then, once you've got those together, you can combine them to make the Frame of Atiesh. Once you've got that, you head off to Anachronos, the great big dragon near the Caverns of Time in Tanaris.
He'll send you in search of the Staff Head of Atiesh, which Kel'Thuzad has gotten his grubby little hands on. He's trying to put the staff back together, and the Argent Dawn is fighting against him, so if you can nab the Head away from him, more power to you. And the Base of Atiesh is the other item you'll need, and it drops from C'thun, the end boss of AQ40. See what I mean about this being the final goal?
After you've done all that, Anachronos will reassemble the staff for you, but wait! It's corrupted! (Figures.) You then take it into Stratholme, and run an event in which you can vanquish the evil spirit from the staff. Along the way, you can pick up another legendary item, a 1h sword that's freakin' awesome, but disappears after only a few minutes. After you defeat the spirit, you're then allowed to claim the staff, giving you the world's phattest loot-- of 2006.
Getting Rid of It: The Greatstaff of the Guardian! The staff of Medivh himself, shattered when Archimonde destoryed Dalaran! Reassembled from shards dropped by ancient demons and cleansed by the most powerful of Azeroth's heroes! And a vendor will give you 18g 45s 58c for it. Go figure.
Liquidor posts on the forums about a cool little tool he's put together. His rep calculator is a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about where your character is at in terms of rep, and what you need to rep up. There's just one little catch-- since Liquidor plays on Boulderfist EU, the calculator only works for EU characters at the moment.
So those of us on US realms are out of luck, but maybe if we give Liquidor a little more attention here, he'll be convinced enough to let us Americans in on the fun. As much as rep grinding is required in the game now, it's interesting that there's not a lot in terms of reputation tools out there-- WoW Wiki has those cool charts for each rep and the quests that can be done to level it, but Liquidor's guide is unmatched in terms of utility-- he even tells you mobs that can be killed for rep, and how many are needed of each type to rep up. Hopefully, especially as we move toward the next expansion (where even more factions will likely be introduced), players will get better and better tools like this to help their rep grinding.
How many times a day do we all search Thottbot, Allakhazam, WoWWiki, Wowhead and others? It gets old really fast to type in the address or go dig it out of bookmarks every time right? About 50 of you are right now thinking, "geez ya noob, like thottbot is my homepage!"
Before you get all huffy and start chargin' your fireball, realize that there is a better way to look-up those [ACME Pauldrons of the Whale]. Think of them as WoW UI add-ons for Firefox. What? That's right, IRL WoW add-ons for your Firefox browser. Check out these search plug-ins that you may get some use out of if you look up things like a banshee. By the way, I've heard that Lady Sylvanas can Google stuff like nobody's business, but that is unconfirmed as of this writing. Firefox search plug-ins for WoW -WoW Armory (both US and EU versions) -Allakhazam Quests -Allakhazam Items -Allakhazam Mobs -Curse gaming add-ons -WoW Official forums -WoWWiki -Wowhead -Wowdirectory
The links to all of these search engines are at Mozilla's "mycroft" website, which lets users build their own search plug-ins for their favorite sites. For any of the search plug-ins, simply click the name of the site you wish to install, and Firefox does the rest.
Our very own search plug-in Also, I am proud to introduce the official WoW Insider Firefox search plugin that you can now download for your WoW Insider perusing pleasure (without having to type the address or leave your browser). Please use this plug-in responsibly, no members of the Burning Legion are allowed to use this search. Enjoy
The pic above is courtesy of reader Scott, and it shows the aftermath of the chaos around the vendor for the Arena season 2 gear. Everyone is jumping on the servers to check the gear out (if you haven't seen it yet, we linked to what it looked like on the PTR a while back, and WoWWiki looks like it should be updated with live stats fairly soon), and so things are crazy around the vendor in Area 52, especially when PvP fights break out.
A couple of players have been complaining about the insanity, so Drysc says on the forums that there are now temporary versions of Krixel, the rewards vendor, appearing in Orgrimmar's Hall of Legends, Stormwind's Champion's Hall, and outside of the Blade's Edge arena. There's no time set as to when the extra vendors will disappear (why wouldn't they have them in all places all the time?), but if you want a firsthand look at what there is to offer, you've got three more places to do it.
Alert reader Scytherea of Dalaran sends in this breaking news: WoWWiki, a website we all know and love for its comprehensive World of Warcraft information, has transformed into MeoWWiki, a website of comprehensive cat information. Says the website formerly known as WoWWiki: We are proud to announce that everyone's favourite wiki is now all about the cats of Warcraft!
And if you've ever been through the Blood Elf starting zone, you know there are plenty of varieties of cat in Azeroth.
Eldariel on the EU forums has posted something cool for Hunters-- he's created a Hunter Wiki. Originally, it was created to just hold the lost stickied threads from when Blizzard cleaned out the forums a while back, but even though the wiki is still small, a little more loving care will set it on its way to becoming a one stop shop for everything you ever wanted to know about being a hunter.
Right now there's only a few pages, but already there's lots of theorycraft, guides to hunter loot and quests, and even a round of hunter-oriented comics (well, some of those are better than others, but it's still a work in progress). They don't have nearly as much pet info as Petopia yet, but being a wiki gives them lots of room to improve.
In fact, the wiki format lends itself very well to WoW info, just because this is a social game consisting of a lot of shared knowledge-- WoWWiki has been proving that theory for a while (and they've got lots of hunter info there as well, along with plenty of other necessary information). But it's definitely awesome to see a wiki dedicated to the ins and out of a particular class, and hopefully what Eldariel has built will bring lots more editors and contributors so more hunters can share what they know with at least a little privacy from the prying eyes of others. In fact, where's my Shaman wiki?
Probably not. But if you did guess March 25th as the date 
...who has 
Kirkburn from the great 
Apparently when 
Eldariel on the EU forums
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