Based on your votes last week for the best piece of anti-advice, congratulations to Eldron for submitting the winning entry: "Hey everyone! Type /afk list when to see who is afk!" He wins fame, respect, and ooh and ahhhs from crowds of adoring fans! Eldron's anti-advice won with 28.7% of the votes.
When I first saw this piece of anti-advice I have to admit I went and tried it right away. I went in AV and typed in /bg, "Man... look at all these AFK people." A few folks responded and agreed with me, annoyed about it. "Type /afk list and report everyone that comes up, please," I say next.
I kid you not – 15 people immediately afk'd out. At that point I started getting some pretty hate-filled tells, so I decided to /afk out myself.
But nonetheless, I just about died from laughter. Of course, this is kind of mean, and just a tad underhanded, but really... sometimes things like this are just too funny to pass up. I tried this again later in a AB match that was going awful, and after I told everyone to type /afk list, someone replied "Yeah, wow, look at all those people." He then sent me a tell: "lol! I've been doing that all day!"
All the people that were dragging us down left the BG, and new ones came in and we won. So maybe this isn't that bad of advice after all...
The machinima community will eat this one right up. What do you need to do? Create a music video for L70ETC's new song, which can be downloaded right on the contest page. The video can be no larger than 50 MB and must be recorded in .WMV, .MOV, or .AVI formats. The rewards are pretty swanky, too. Three Grand Prize winners will receive an 8GB iPod Touch, and the five First Place winners will get a G15 Logitech keyboard and a signed copy of the World of Warcraft Battlechest.
Personally, I'm wondering how long they've been sitting on this song. It's a fun song, don't get me wrong, but it's a little outdated. Perdition's Blade? Really? I suppose Netherblade came with The Burning Crusade, but the rest is pretty old school!
Last week I asked you to leave a comment with tips of anti-advice you could give to players. Things like "Be sure to move in the flame wreath so you're not cold when the blizzard hits!" or "Just walk up to Archimonde, he won't agro until you hit him." You all responded in force and gave lots of good tips and pieces of advice. Now for fame and no-fortune, lets vote for the best one!
I'll close the voting next weekend and announce the winner on Monday April 21st. Vote now! I did!
Penny Arcade, those funny WoW comic guys, are giving away a metric ton of loot, via a contest, that they've gotten for the WoW Trading Card Game. Things that they're giving away include "four boxes of boosters, tournament playmats, a Winterveil collector's box, deckboxes, sleeves, two binders, three raid decks, three starter decks, and one of these awesome dice chest things." That's a ton of stuff to be handing out. But it gets better.
Three lucky winners will be quite happy. What's the contest they're holding? From the site: "you must write a short story, set in World of Warcraft, and this story must be precisely ten words long." It's so simple and so easy you just have to chuckle. Head on over to their site for more information on how to enter the contest.
Of course, you'll have to go up against a certain WoW Insider writer on this one, since I've already submitted my story: "A casual paladin casually walks up and one shots Illidan."
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.)
Good evening ladies and gentlemen (cue the WoW Insider Show intro music). For tonight's entertainment, I present to you a fully functional PTR – complete with Sunwell Plateau and lots of goodies to play around with. Well, at least it's evening if you're up with me at 3:00 a.m. when I'm posting this.
But even if you're not a night owl, now is probably your last chance to head over to the PTR and test out all the goodness that is patch 2.4. Blizzard had shut it down until now, possibly to just test out one or two other things before releasing the patch soon. My bet is still on March 25th. I have no little birdie in my ear saying that's a for sure thing, but I just have this gut feeling I'm right. If you've participated in the guess the release date contest, you might be under a week away from winning a nice 60 day game card.
I had to apply a couple of patches when logging onto the game tonight. It only took about 10 minutes though. Not too bad. We've looked over the patch notes and in-game items and can't find anything different – although perhaps there are some changes we're overlooking. However with that said, often times Blizzard will make the "undocumented" changes on the PTR right before they release the live patch. Who knows what those are...
Many thanks to Smokecom for sending us a link to a post made by Tigerclaw. In response to a patch 2.4 release date thread, he tells us (post copied in totality):
"It's not today. Cancel patch alert!"
Well, there you have it. No patch 2.4 today. This of course means that all of you who voted March 18th in the guess the patch 2.4 release date contest are not going to win, I'm sorry to say. But it also means that my guess of March 25th is starting to look pretty good.
So we are left with at least one more week of running to Mount Hyjal, and one more week of 30 yard cyclone. Maintenance should be ending in about one and a half hours from now. Enjoy!
As horrible as Barrens chat and the trade channel can be by times, one of my favorite parts of Sunday's tournament test realm stress test was reading through the chats. Although I'm sure the guys had some pretty great tells, considering their names were more obvious than mine (Insideradam, Insideralex, and Vehn), I did catch some gems of my own.
One thing that was rampant on Sunday was names that were clearly against the terms of service, and of course nasty language. So if any of the photos have blurred-out names, you'll know why! Before you jump through, keep in mind there are a few photos, so the load might be slow. Don't forget to check out my full coverage of the stress test!
This morning, we have quite a few comics for you to peruse before you head out and start your day, including the February winner of Blizzard's Honorable Comic Contest. From poking a bit of fun at the election process to rooting out those terrorists, we've got you covered.
Don't forget that our contest to guess the patch 2.4 release date ends Monday, so this weekend is your last chance to leave your guess for when the patch on the PTR will go on the live realms (in American date format: DD/MM) on our contest post (not on this post). We've got a ton of guesses so far, and definitely enough to cover all the days in between now and next year (although the patch is probably dropping sometime in March), so what we'll do is pick randomly from the people who guess on the correct day to give out the game cards. And if you are super bored this weekend and want to take all the data from that post and plot us a graph of where all the guesses land (so we can come up with fun stuff like an average guess), we could probably think of something nice to do for you too.
Anyway, yes, follow the rules (must be a US resident and over the age of 18, must only enter once), and if you haven't yet, leave your guess on our contest post now. The polls will close, so to speak, on Monday, and of course we'll pick the winners when the patch drops.
Don't forget that we're asking for your guesses on when patch 2.4 will hit the live realms. To enter our contest, just head over to the original post (don't leave a comment on this post, because you can't) and leave a comment with your guess of when the patch will go live using the XX/XX date format (as in, 03/12 for a guess of March 12th).
Personally, I think it will be during March, but later, so Adam's mathematical guess of March 25th is pretty good. Then again, I always predict things to come later than they do, so knowing Blizzard, they might drop it earlier in March. But your actual guess is up to you, of course.
Enter your comment on that post (not this one) before March 3rd, and be a US resident and 18 years of age or older to enter to win a game card if you pick the correct date (or are closest, or are one of four random people who picked the date, if there are more than four). Good luck everybody, and we'll find out the winner when Blizzard finally drops the new content patch!
The contest is now closed. Thanks for playing! We'll get a hold of winners as soon as the patch is released.
We all know that World of Warcraft's patch 2.4 is coming soon -- the only real question is when. And that, dear readers, is what we're asking you! Any time in the next week you can leave a comment on this post with your guess on when patch 2.4 will officially be released. When the patch comes out, we have four 60-day game time cards (worth approximately $30) to give to the readers who guessed correctly. (If more than four people guessed the correct date, we'll randomly choose four correct entries as winners. If no one guessed the correct date, we'll award prizes to those closest to the correct date.) All entries must be received before Monday, March 3rd at 9:00 AM EST, though we can't select winners until 2.4 has officially launched.
But Wait! There's more!
I'll even make this easier for you by using some of that good ol' mathematics. After some research, I've compiled the dates and lengths of previous patches. Take a look after the break for not only your chance to win some free game time, but also for an educated guess at when patch 2.4 will go live!
It's been a few weeks since we wrapped up our 12 Days of Winter Veil contest in cooperation with our friends at Ideazon, and though we're still trying to get in touch with some of our winners, there are a lot of WoW Insider readers who deserve congratulations! Winners of FragMat gamepads include: Melenor, Ragamuffin42, Mia, Wilkie, Ellyndia, SJPadbury, Nojj, Ed, Annai, Dachande, ceckjustin, Alu, Hostile, Stephen, Analogstd, pamoonbtc, Brian, TwhiT, Efigyuge, ArsenalFox, Rhiley, and ragecage. Winners of 60 day WoW game cards are Hostile, Stoney, and Vitasoy. Winners of GH-100 gaming headsets are Zoltargg and Jane. Winners of Zboard keyboards are Swarfy, Begonia, 1Adam12, and Chris. And, finally, G is taking home a class t-shirt and Leigh is taking home a Reaper gaming mouse.
Thanks to everyone for participating and a big congrats to all of our winners!
WoW Radio (home of our illustrious podcast) has announced the finalists in their WoW Idol contest, and you can listen to and vote on them right now over on their web site. There are a ton of interesting choices, too, from Sevhnn's dance-hop flavored "MS Warrior Tribute," to Selserene and Rob Munsch's delicate classical turns on Azerothian themes.
I have to say that I especially like Jeff Wichtowski's "Keep the Tank from Dying," just because it sounds so perfectly like one of those songs. But these are all good-- "Strength and Honor" from Liquidator and Threat sounds good (is that a Fort Minor sample at the end?), and "I Smile When I Gank" (by Daryl Brewer, who apparently won the last WoW Idol) is hilarious (love the backing vocals), and the Hyskelettes' "Heal!" is a great Beatles cover/parody.
But only one can be the WoW Idol popular choice, and win some great prizes (WoW Radio has also added some new ones in-- I believe the winners are also going to get some Winter's Veil boxes from Upper Deck). So definitely run over there and get your vote in ASAP.
WoW Radio (home of our increasingly popular podcast) sends along a note that they've announced another round of WoW Idol, a contest to find the best WoW-related song their listeners can come up with. They're looking for both original work, and WoW parodies of popular songs, and the deadline is Friday the 18th of January. After that, the songs will be posted on their site (and played on air), and the finalists will be narrowed down to five winners, including three critics' choices, one popular choice, and a worst/most embarrassing winner. Sounds like a lot of fun (get it? "sounds"? ha!).
And the prizes have notably improved from the last go-around-- you could win a signed poster, t-shirts, and everyone (including the worst winner) gets a BlizzCon beta key/murloc suit card. Hot! They're looking for songs 3-5 minutes long and related to World of Warcraft in some way-- send your submission to "wowidol AT wcradio dot com".
Can't wait to hear the entries-- if any of them happen to be related to WoW Insider, we'll have to ask WoW Radio to let us play them on our podcast as well. If you plan to enter, good luck!
Based on your votes last week for the best piece of anti-advice, congratulations to Eldron for submitting the winning entry: "Hey everyone! Type /afk list when to see who is afk!" He wins fame, respect, and ooh and ahhhs from crowds of adoring fans! Eldron's anti-advice won with 28.7% of the votes.
Penny Arcade
Probably not. But if you did guess March 25th as the date 
Many thanks to Smokecom for sending us a link to 
Don't forget that our contest to guess the 
Don't forget that we're asking for your guesses on when patch 2.4 will hit the live realms. To enter our contest, just 
The contest is now closed. Thanks for playing! We'll get a hold of winners as soon as the patch is released.
WoW Radio (home of our illustrious podcast) has announced the finalists in their WoW Idol contest, and 
WoW Radio
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