The answers are all pretty good (I've put them all behind the break -- thanks, Twitterers!). From what most people said, lore and story play a huge part in making a fight feel epic, and not just the story of the game, but the story of the guild playing as well -- when your guild almost wipes, and pulls off a great kill, that's an epic battle whether it's in Karazhan or in Sunwell Plateau. Challenge also helps -- people raid to be pushed to the edge of their endgame abilities, and when a well-tuned fight does that, it's one of the best experiences in the game.
Great answers all -- hopefully we'll get to see more epic encounters than not in the Wrath of the Lich King (as Matticus points out, we don't need 40 or even 25 players to have a truly epic encounter with Arthas). And if you haven't started following our Twitter account (@WoWInsider) yet, please do, and stay tuned for more interesting and informal Twitter polls like this.
Last week on the podcast (which will be posted later today, and is pretty good, if I say so myself), Turpster informed us that he's gotten up to level 61 on his Shadow Priest that he started a while ago. His goal is to make it all the way to 70 by Wrath of the Lich King, which means he and I are in an informal race at this point -- my Hunter is currently 64 and I'm aiming to hit 70 by the expansion as well.
Unfortunately, we have no idea when the expansion will drop. If you're the optimistic type, yesterday's BlizzCon announcement might have hinted to you that the expansion will come out before the big event in Anaheim, which means we'll be in Northrend before October. I'm not so optimistic -- I'm still thinking we won't see Wrath until right before the holidays, and Blizzard being Blizzard, probably delayed until January again.
But either way, you've got at least a few months, so what are your major goals before the expansion hits? Going to level a character, get a certain Arena rating, or do every Heroic? Aiming to get your mount, still, or have a goal with your guild to finish Sunwell before all the new content shows up? What are you aiming to do before going to see Arthas?
Terra Nova put a quick post up about putting the Blizzard vs. WoW Glider case (and the Public Knowledge amicus brief) in the larger context of whether or not End User License Agreements are "good" or "bad," but even better than the post is the comments section. Lots of MMO heavies, including Richard Bartle, show up to break down just what Blizzard is trying to do with their claim against the botting software, and what they might end up doing to the industry at large.
No one is against Blizzard's goal of trying to stop cheaters. But the way Blizzard is going about it puts their stance in jeopardy -- they're saying that cheating in their MMO is a violation of copyright, and that is a completely different issue. Even Bartle himsef says this is an "ends justify the means" argument -- Blizzard is just using the copyright issue to get the judge to say that cheating is bad. As we posted the other day, Public Knowledge believes that any decision that says "yes, Glider breaks copyright law," could then be used as a precedent for calling any EULA violation a copyright violation.
Adam Hyland, in the Terra Nova thread, has the breakdown of outcomes: either a judge rules completely in favor of MDY/Glider (thus leaving every software maker open to EULA violations -- very unlikely), or a judge rules either narrowly in favor of Blizzard (saying that yes, cheating is wrong, but it's not a copyright issue), or wholly in favor of Blizzard (which Public Knowledge fears the most -- if breaking the EULA is a copyright violation, everyone who names their character XXNoobz0rXX is breaking copyright law). We'll have to see what comes out of this case, and hope that it's for the best for both Blizzard and their players.
I've got something to celebrate -- not only is my birthday just around the corner (May 6th, cash and cake both accepted as presents), but my WoW-nniversary has just passed also. It was three years ago, in mid April of 2005, I think, that I bought World of Warcraft as a birthday present to myself, and I've been playing the game ever since. So in celebration of my third anniversary as a WoW player, let's ask a first-timer question today (courtesy of WI's own Elizabeth Wachowski): what did you think when you first played this game?
I started up as a Night Elf, and even though I'd played Dark Age of Camelotbefore, and read up completely on World of Warcraft, I was pretty overwhelmed. I was clueless, too -- I had no idea there was any world beyond Teldrassil. I didn't discover Stormwind or Ironforge until I was at least level 30. But I did like it -- Dark Age of Camelot's long, low-reward grind had left me jaded, and so when a green item dropped for me within a few minutes of rolling up my character, I knew I'd found a game with a reward system as good as Diablo II.
What did you first think of World of Warcraft? I can't imagine anyone hating the game completely (and staying around long enough to answer a discussion question here), but did you hate it for some reason? Did you love it from the start, or were there things that you missed until much later on? Did you start in beta and think it was unfinished, or did you start after Burning Crusade and wonder why it was so empty? What were your first impressions of WoW?
Q: How many Warlocks does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Just one, but he needs two other people to click on it.
Yes, that's the kind of quality humor that you'll hear on this week's podcast (and the best joke is right at the end of the show). It's now available for listening on WoW Radio and also in iTunes. This past Saturday, Turpster joined me, Eliah Hecht, and Matthew Rossi for a little discussion about all things WoW in the past week. We got in some good discussion about speccing as a mage and lots of other reader emails, as well as:
And we chatted about the "brutal" ratings required on Brutal Gladiator items in season 4, and why they're there.
Plus of course instant feedback from the IRC channel, and the usual wackiness. If you liked the show or have a comment for us, feel free to send along a note to theshow@wowinsider.com, and we might even read it next week live on the virtual air. Thanks for listening, enjoy the show.
What's your favorite time of the week to get some good WoW gaming in?
It used to be that I really enjoyed playing on the evenings weeknights -- I'd rush home from work to sign into Azeroth and enjoy the primtime evening crowds. Then, I started raiding, and I looked forward to raid nights every week -- usually Tuesday and Sunday. Nowadays, I'm mostly soloing my way through daily quests and new content, and strangely enough, I enjoy logging on early on weekend mornings. I start around 8am on Saturdays and Sundays, and then play through until 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
Of course, those aren't the only times I play -- I like signing in whenever I have a chance, either to level up or run a group with a few friends. But I really enjoy playing on weekend mornings, with my coffee and maybe a DVD on in the background. What's your favorite time of the week to play?
As I was perusing the very first review of Grand Theft Auto 4 yesterday, I noted that the "collectibles" in that game are going to be pretty intriguing. While a lot of collectible items in games (say, all the packages in the previous GTA games, or the flags in Assassin's Creed) are fairly superfluous, I find that some (like the orbs in Crackdown and the billboards and jumps in Burnout Paradise) actually make the game more fun -- while traveling through the game world, you can keep an eye out for extra stuff to do and see.
World of Warcraft has never really jumped in on that idea, however. Obviously, there are plenty of collecting quests, but usually they're for killing mobs. And there are plenty of things to collect in the game -- noncombat pets, tabards, and mounts, and so on -- but none of them really give you a reward when you find a certain number of them, or give you bonuses based on how many you've picked up.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? For me, hiding some fun, optional collectibles (and giving small rewards based on just finding them) in a world as lush as Azeroth would make exploring an already great environment better. But I'm sure some would see it as a cheap tactic to make people hunt for widgets. What do you think?
I'm currently working through Zangarmarsh on my Hunter, and this weekend I spent a lot of time grinding two completely different kinds of mobs. The Withered Bog Lords in northern Zangarmarsh were cake for my Hunter -- they weren't exactly gentle with my pet, but he was able to eat the damage, and I could have grinded right away on them all day. At the exact opposite end of the grinding scale, however, were those stupid Umbrafen Eels -- not only were they under water (always annoying), but they've got this on-hit electrical damage thing that just drove me nuts. I stayed to play with the Bog Lords for a long time, racking up the XP, but as soon as I was done with the Eels, I got out of the water and stayed out.
Fighting these two back to back got me thinking: what's the easiest/hardest mob to grind on? Some mobs (like the tigers in Stranglethorn or the bears/spiders in Ashenvale) are super easy to grind -- they have no special abilities, they're spaced out, and they go down fast. But others -- most gnolls, in my experience, and lots of casters -- are just annoying as all get out; they run around, pull others, heal up when they're almost dead, and give you lots of headaches while taking them down. Those are the mobs you don't sit around and grind on -- they're the ones you avoid completely after you've done whatever quest requires you to kill them.
What are your favorite or least favorite mobs to just grind on in the game?
Yesterday, I bashfully admitted that I don't use the /focus feature in the default UI as much as I should -- in fact, aside from a totem dropping macro I put together a long time ago, I haven't used macros nearly as much as I should. It's not that I don't want to -- I'm sure I could be a better player with more macros (like the ones found in our Macro Anatomy column) -- it's just that as I said in the /focus post, there are so many ways to use macros that it's kind of tough to figure out just where to put them in your gameplay.
So let's talk about macros -- do you use them? If not, why not? And if so, how do you use them? Of course, we all play different classes, but within your class, where do you find it's easier to use macros, and it's easier to play things manually?
A lot of good players could probably become great players with a few easy macros, but for players who have no idea what macros are for, it's sometimes hard to figure out where they fit. If you do use them, how?
We get our motivation today from Thongsnapper (nice name) of Gorefiend who asks, if you could have any spell in Warcraft in real life, which one would you have? Hearthstone would be an interesting choice for sure, and Polymorph would make for an interesting life (though its uses might be pretty limited, considering that real life doesn't actually have aggro management), but I think personally I'm going to have to fall back on the old superpower standby: stealth. Moving around unseen just seems too fun to pass up.
Actually, I might second guess that -- in terms of practicality, healing spells might actually be more beneficial to the world. Wave your hands, and any ailments, no matter how big or small, are done away with. I'll have to give this some serious thought. In the meantime, let's hear it: if you could have any spell from the game in real life, which one would you choose?
There's just so much to love about Hello Kitty Online, the new game that we're now covering (thanks to a decision by the higher ups at AOL) 24/7. Maybe you love the character customization -- you can change your hair (why wait until some frozen expansion to do that, right?), clothes, accessories, shoes, or even your facial features. Or maybe it's farming, mining, cooking, tailoring, or one of the many other professions in the game (no Inscription but that sucked anyway, if you ask us). Or maybe it's just doing a little interior decorating -- unlike another game that we used to cover, HKO is going to have player housing from the start.
Yep, there are many, many things to love about Sanrio's upcoming game (not least of them the cutest characters ever made -- say what you will about Ragnaros, but nobody ever wanted to hug him). On this, our first HKO Insider Breakfast Topic ever, we're asking: what's your favorite part of Hello Kitty Online?
Man, with all the patch 2.4 news flying around today, you might feel a little overwhelmed. Well, worry no more, because just when you need something a little silly and lighthearted, the WoW Insider Show comes right along, with Episode 30 now available on WoW Radio and iTunes. This past Saturday, Turpster and I, along with Amanda Dean and Elizabeth Wachowski of WoW Insider, had a sit down to talk about all of the biggest news in the past week of Warcraft, including, but not limited to:
Our favorite trinkets (mine I picked only because the tooltip uses the word "fecundity")
We chatted about the best starting areas in the game (there was a strange split over the Dwarf/Gnome area for some reason as well)
And finally we hit on Amanda's Azerothian General Election, which you can still vote on right now -- Thrall is still winning, so Alliance, you better grab your sword and fight the Horde.
We did check in reader email, too, and Turpster says he's headed to 70, so we asked for your input on what kind of reward (or punishment) we can give him if he makes it before Wrath -- if you have a suggestion, email us at theshow@wowinsider.com.
And speaking of Turpster, you've got to see his new TurpsterVision over at Massively today -- it's a spectacular tale of a galaxy long ago and far away, if you know what I mean.
If you listened to the show last week, you may have heard that this week's podcast was supposed to be all about multiboxing, with a special guest, but unfortunately we've had to postpone that show (so look for it at some point in the future). But worry not, because this week on the podcast we're bringing back fan favorite Elizabeth Wachowski (and we're going to ask her to talk about some of the lore in the Burning Crusade), and other fan favorite Amanda Dean, who is always insightful. Fan super favorite Turpster will be on as well, and fan not-so-favorite Mike Schramm, also known as me, will be present and accounted for, too.
In addition to the lore stuff, we'll chat about racing through the game, getting your loot stolen, and why it's a good thing that the Alliance sees "kek" instead of "lol" from the Horde. Plus, we will answer your reader questions, which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com, or ask us personally on the IRC channel during the show: that's at mmo.irc.com in the #wowradio channel.
Should be fun -- the show starts right at 3:30pm EST, so be there and bring your ears, too.
In the wake of Alex Ziebart's recent post for Hybrid Theory, we received a number of comments from paladins on their ability to main-tank a 25-man raid. Behind the scenes, the subject was equally controversial; many of us here play tanks and we all feel passionate about our classes. An email discussion started about hybrid tanks in general, and it got to be so interesting that we were threatened with being fired if we didn't post it we were asked to share it with our readers.
Warriors? Druids? Paladins? And the people who love them? This one's for you. Now, I've previously fielded complaints that my posts are too long, so far warning; if you're not in the mood for a pretty thorough look at the current state of hybrid tanking, you'll probably want to keep moving. If you play any tank at all, just want to know more about them and the people who choose to play tanks, or are considering rolling a tank class, I hope you find the following to be of interest.
Please note that the headers below are not, as in portions of Matthew Rossi's post, quotes from anybody involved; they're just a means of helping me organize my thoughts and translate our email conversations into the blogging format. I'm attempting to condense the content of multiple email conversations.
My perspective on Alex's post
For reference, my main is a tanking feral druid in a Tier 6 raiding guild. Our main tank is a protection paladin, and we're on Reliquary of Souls at the moment. This guy main-tanked Vashj, main-tanked Kael for a certain period until we found out his computer settings made it really tough for him to see Flamestrikes (so we substituted a warrior for that reason, not because of the pally/warrior divide), and has main-tanked most of Hyjal and a fairish amount of Black Temple.
Ixus sent us a question about hiring mercenaries in World of Warcraft: he's a level 20 Warlock who paid a level 57 a whopping 1g to run him through Deadmines since he couldn't find a group for it. We have mentioned this topic before, but it's usually in posts about beggars, and I don't know if we've actually considered what could be a cottage industry: actually setting rates and hiring out higher levels to complete various tasks for lowbies.
Is this an OK thing to do. I'll admit that I've run lowbies through instances before, but never for gold -- usually it's a friend of mine who just wants some extra gear from a certain instance. And I've been offered gold for an instance run, but I've never accepted it, and I'm not even sure what I would charge to actually run someone through an instance (I'd probably have pretty high terms: 5-10g and a portion of the drops, depending on what class was going through).
Have you? Do you think this is the kind of thing that's legit (and if so, should Blizzard maybe even implement a "looking for mercenaries" channel for lowbies to find their benefactors?), or should lowbies all go find their own groups like you had to and stop pestering you to run them through Wailing Caverns for their pittance?
As you may have heard the other day, our Twitter account is up and running, and one of the most vocal participants so far has been our new Priest blogger, Matticus from World of Matticus. The other day, he posted a question on the Twitter account that he'd also asked people on his own blog: what makes an encounter epic?
Last week on 
Terra Nova put a quick post up about putting 
I've got something to celebrate -- not only is my birthday just around the corner (May 6th, cash and cake both accepted as presents), but my WoW-nniversary has just passed also. It was three years ago, in mid April of 2005, I think, that I bought World of Warcraft as a birthday present to myself, and I've been playing the game ever since. So in celebration of my third anniversary as a WoW player, let's ask a first-timer question today (courtesy of WI's own 
Q: How many Warlocks does it take to change a lightbulb?
What's your favorite time of the week to get some good WoW gaming in?
As I was perusing 
I'm currently working through Zangarmarsh on my Hunter, and this weekend I spent a lot of time grinding two completely different kinds of mobs. The
Yesterday, I bashfully admitted that I 
There's just so much to love about 
Man, with all the 
Ixus sent us a question about hiring mercenaries in World of Warcraft: he's a level 20 Warlock who paid a level 57 a whopping 1g to run him through Deadmines since he couldn't find a group for it. We have mentioned this topic before, but it's usually in 
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