World of Warcraft 4

Filed under: Patches, Mounts

You may have noticed an interesting little change in the 3.1 patch notes: ground mounts are now able to swim! This made us curious: how does a Mechanostrider swim? How does a Kodo swim? So, Adam and I ran off to the test realms to capture video of it all. And, before you ask, no bears were harmed in the making of these videos. (The Talbuks, though, whose heads seem to be under water even when you’re on the surface, we make no promises about.)

Continue reading WoW 3.1 PTR: Swimming mount video

WoW 3.1 PTR: Swimming mount video originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items

The Digital Distribution Tax has been around for a little while now. In fact, seventeen or more states have already adopted it, and more are considering it.

Once upon a time, digitally distributed content, such as downloaded copies of WoW and its expansions, allowed customers to avoid the sales tax that they would pay if they bought a copy from a store.

This proposed tax is poised to increase the costs of downloading music, books, videos, games, and other similar content.

Wisconsin is one of the most recent states to hop on board, adding a 5% tax to digitally distributed goods. One of the opponents, State Rep. Scott Suder, commented, “it’s basically taxing students to fill in the Doyle budget shortfall, and I think that’s unfair.”

This tax will also affect families, and in these economic times, further taxing the people may not be the best way to drum up state funds.

Steve Delbiano from NetChoice, which encompasses Ebay, Aol, Yahoo and many others, points out that this tax is anything but environmentally friendly.

“With global warming and a world that’s running out of oil, the last thing governments should do is add taxes on something that uses no oil and produces no carbon. A digital download is the greenest way to buy music, movies, and software, since it requires no driving to the store, no delivery vans, and no plastics or packaging.”

The ECA, or Entertainment Consumer’s Organization, a voice for the people, is leading a campaign against this tax, rallying in New York, Washington and Mississippi.

China recently chose a similar route. Instead of adding a sales tax, they imposed a 20% income tax upon digitally distributed goods, resulting in sweeping price increases.

Unfortunately, this trend might be here to stay.

New tax set to raise costs of digital downloads originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Classes, Talents, Wrath of the Lich King

Just in case you haven’t been following what people have been saying about the dual spec system lately, Slashhug has a terrific post up covering all of the concerns and thoughts about the new system and how it will affect groups and raids. It’s long, but he covers all of the bases, from how hybrids with two specs will affect which players get chosen for groups, to loot and how that will work (the same — main specs first, offspecs if needed), and even soloing and why dual specs will be a blessing for classes who are normally built more for group play.

There’s not a lot of new complaints or answers in here — lots of it has already been discussed on the forums and in our own posts. But Slashhug does a great job of wrapping it all up into one big tasty dual spec sandwich, so you can catch up on all the thinking about dual specs so far. The bottom line, in terms of player reaction, is that dual specs will allow you to do more with your class than you can with just one spec. If you want to heal, you can still heal, or if you’re built for tanking, you can still do that. But in groups where things don’t quite fit (you’ve got a few tanks and your DPS is a little low, or your Priest could use a little extra help healing for this boss fight), dual specs will let you make the necessary tweaks right then and there, and excel that much more.

Player reactions to dual specs originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Blizzard, Forums

Boredom and burnout is a common side effect of spending too much time with any one hobby. Still, it was refreshing to see Ghostcrawler, the Lead Systems Designer for WoW, recommend that players spend some time with other games.

He points out that if you’re feeling burned out, it’s “not the worst thing in the world to try out some other games — the past couple of years has been great for them.”

Of course, he did take the time to remind everyone that there is more to the game than clearing raid content or completing your latest PvP gear set. There are achievements, alts, questing, and tradeskills, to name a few.

While this does indicate that Blizzard is feeling pretty confident in their chokehold on the MMO market, it’s also a smart move on their part. There are already enough paranoid conspiracy theories out there claiming that the company merely wants our money, and less concerned with product quality than with elaborate plans designed to trick us into playing longer and shelling out more money.

In fact, GC said this in response to one of these inspired theories.

This reminds me of one of the loading screen tips that urges players to spend some time with their friends outside of this game as well as in it. As Ghostcrawler says, “just check back in with WoW every now and then.”

Ghostcrawler suggests we play other games originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Hey, everybody! How’s your Friday afternoon so far? Mine is full of rain and Vanilla Coke. Mmm. Delicious Vanilla Coke. You know, I’m definitely a Mountain Dew man, and Voltage is my lifeblood, but some days you just want something else. I couldn’t drink Vanilla Coke every day, but cracking one open now and then? Caffeinated heaven.* Now, if I can just find my dentures, I’ll start answering your questions…

Hellscreamy asked…

A few days ago I read in one of the posts that Noblegarden would be getting new achievements, items and events. Is there any indication at the moment (PTR or otherwise) that this will count towards the ‘What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been’ achievement?

Continue reading The Queue: Vanilla Coke edition

The Queue: Vanilla Coke edition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, News items

The 3.1 PTR has brought a lot of wonderful quality of life improvements, but here’s one that players and GMs alike will undoubtedly appreciate more than a lot of them: you finally, finally get a confirmation window when you enter an instance that would lock you to it. You get the option to accept the lockout and stay in the instance or leave the instance and save your ID for later. You have 15 seconds to make said choice.

This means no more getting screwed out of heroics by some idiot who forgot he already ran Violet Hold today or any other of the myriad ways you can lose your ID for the day (or week). It’s about time.

Our good friend BRK found this feature without even realizing it, as WI reader Brandon Tilley discovered it in BRK’s screenshots of a PTR raid last night. Thanks for the heads-up on this exciting change, Brandon, and way to miss the boat, BRK!

In the category of “finally”: Raid ID confirmation windows in 3.1 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status

The login server has announced that Blizzard is aware of some authentication server problems going around tonight. It didn’t seem very widespread when the notice first went up, but we’ve been gradually getting more reports of it as the night has gone on.

Oddly, I was able to log into WoW when the notice was first posted, but I can’t anymore. I wasn’t doing anything important, so I decided to check it out and sure thing, it was time for a ride on the failboat. I’m also stuck on a loading screen while trying to test out the Iron Council on the PTR, so I’m currently riding on a Cruise Failboat. How decadent!

If we get any other updates before the authentication server starts working again, we’ll be sure to keep you all posted.

Edit: Welp, it works again. Go forth and play!

Edit: Welp, it (mostly) works again. Go forth and play (some of you)!

Friday night authentication server trouble [UPDATED x2] originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch

Okay, I admit it. I missed an obvious part of the punchline here until I did my due diligence research after the fact. When I first loaded up Atraira’s music video for Boombox, I didn’t get it right away. I dug the music, thought the message was great (”Music can bring the world together!”), and then was rightly confused at the end. I did notice that the singers were obsessed with “boiled goose,” so I did a bit of Google-fu. Then I got it.

The song itself is actually written and performed by The Lonely Island. You probably remember them as the chaps who sang a song about their parts in a box or a good “Lazy Sunday.” Suddenly, the song became that much funnier, since I understood it was satire comedy.

At any rate, the video itself is actually pretty good. I enjoy the two male Draenei as singers, and thought their costuming was well chosen and quite inspired. The milieus of old stuffy men spontaneously dancing worked very well against the lyrics.

And if you’re like me, you can probably still enjoy the message of “Music will bring the world together!” I refuse to let go of that.

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ..

WoW Moviewatch: Boombox originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, News items, Raiding

After players got a taste of Hodir yesterday, Blizzard earlier opened up another Ulduar boss encounter on the Patch 3.1 PTR. The Iron Council were ready and waiting for raiders eager to have a shot at them — and as you can see from the screenshot above, they don’t look like pushovers. However, numerous crashes and related problems prevented full testing of the encounter, and Blizzard shut down Ulduar testing for the meantime. We had some of our team from WoW Insider who tried to take a crack at the Iron Council but were repelled by various iterations of server fail.

[UPDATE: According to some reports, well-known raiding guilds Death & Taxes, Method, and Fusion all managed to stay inside Ulduar for some time after Blizzard booted everyone else out of the instance. This is sort of expected, considering Blizzard wanted to truly test the encounter -- numerous players formed 2-man raids just to be able to enter Ulduar, thus maxing out the instance limit.]

Players who can’t get on the PTR or who have similarly given up in frustration because the world server isn’t exactly in the stablest of conditions, you can live the encounters vicariously through the streaming video of other intrepid players such as the folks from Rawrcast or Thelastrace on Justin TV. You mileage may vary. In the meantime, you can enjoy the screenshots of the encounter below. We guarantee they won’t crash.

[UPDATED] WoW Patch 3.1 shuts down the Iron Council originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries

As you can see by this impromptu Dalaran firing squad, Blizzard has found a cheap and effective way to reduce the workload of their GMs. While sanctioned for a wide variety of offenses, this particular punishment is most frequently used for people who link “anal <item or spell>” in trade chat. Also on the drawing table: reducing the penalty volcano with an actual volcano.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, double-mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Around Azeroth: Any last requests? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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