WoW quality

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

The druid returned to consciousness slowly. He found he couldn’t sit up; he was stretched across a leather cot. The worst of his wounds were bandaged and cleaned. He admitted to himself he was surprised.

«Good,» Lolegolas said, again surprising the druid. The two of them were in a small camp consisting of a tiny cooking fire, the druid’s cot, and a log for the blood elf to sit on. It lacked even a tent. «I was worried.»

«What happened?» the druid said. He finally found the strength to sit up, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. «I was trying to get free and bring … Throgg! Throgg needs us!»

«I know,» the blood elf said quietly. «The Grimtotem tossed you into a river. I found you on the way to the top of the bluff. They left you for dead. I suspect if it weren’t for your particular curse, you would be. Can you walk? They will execute Throgg in the morning if we’re not in position soon.»

The druid muttered a quick prayer. Green lights circled his body, invigorating him. «Healing is not my strength, but I am capable. We can go. What’s your plan?»

Lolegolas proffered a small trinket in his hands. It looked like the jawbone of a tiny shark. «We’ll snatch victory from this. The [hide]Jaws of Defeat[/hide]. One of the most powerful magical artifacts used today. I have a plan.»

The blood elf cast his gaze to the bluff overlooking Grimtotem Central. «We’re out of time. Let’s go. Ride like the wind, druid. Ride like the wind.»

Next week, the conclusion of this part of the tale (and the return of more jokes) …

Gallery: [hide]Phat Loot Phriday: Cataclysm[/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide][hide][/hide][hide]Continue reading Phat Loot Phriday: Jaws of Defeat[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Phat Loot Phriday[/hide][hide]Phat Loot Phriday: Jaws of Defeat[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

WoW Insider’s on a [hide]Daily Quest[/hide] to bring you interesting, informative, and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

And now, it’s time for another round of Vanilla Nostalgia, courtesy of yours truly. When healing back in vanilla, «mana regen» was what you called chugging a potion. MP5? We had no idea what that was back then. Healers dragged along as many mana potions as they could stuff in their bags, and you could use as many as you wanted in a fight, although you were still limited by a 2-minute cooldown. However, you could use different kinds of potions while that first one was on its 2-minute cooldown. Enter Felwood, otherwise known as that rotten, misbegotten hole I spent I don’t know how many hours in farming stupid plants on off-nights.

The plants in Felwood were useful, particularly [hide]Night Dragon’s Breath[/hide]. It also had a 2-minute cooldown but returned a healthy chunk of mana — just enough, in fact, to get you to that next [hide]Major Mana Potion[/hide] once it was off cooldown. Farming the plants, however, was tricky. You had to get [hide]Cenarion Plant Salve[/hide], apply it to a [hide]Corrupted Night Dragon[/hide], and then take the cleansed plant. These plants spawned on a timer in a circuit around Felwood. Night Dragon’s Breath runs usually lasted three to four hours at a time, yielding enough plants for a week or so of raiding — if you were lucky.

Lesson over! Aren’t we glad we don’t have to muck about with plants anymore? Today, we’ve got some posts from around the blogosphere with all kinds of information on healing in patch 4.2.

[hide]Kurn’s Corner[/hide] discusses paladin healing in 4.2 and a gigantic [hide]lack of mana[/hide].

[hide]Totem Forest[/hide] picks apart the Eye of Blazing Power from a [hide]resto shaman perspective[/hide].

[hide]Foofy’s CupCake Factory[/hide] has put together a very nice video going over the basics of [hide]resto druid healing[/hide] in patch 4.2.

[hide]World of Matticus[/hide] has some tips for all healers headed into the [hide]Lord Rhyolith encounter[/hide].

Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our [hide]WoW Resources Guide[/hide] for more WoW-related sites.
Filed under: [hide]The Daily Quest[/hide][hide]The Daily Quest: Healing and you[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

Every week, [hide]Raid Rx[/hide] will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is [hide]Matt Low[/hide], the grand poobah of [hide]World of Matticus[/hide] and a founder of [hide]Plus Heal[/hide], a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the [hide]Matticast[/hide].

After a disastrous first week when my raid group got completely shut out of Shannox, we were able to storm back in and take him down fast. The main reason for our initial trouble was the fact that we were using the completely wrong approach when it came to tanks and who they were on.

Whoops!

Tank healing an encounter like Shannox is demanding on so many fronts. A standard healing template I use is to place one healer on each tank and the rest on the raid so that they can exercise their judgment. From there, I can scale up the amount of dedicated tank healers if I feel it becomes necessary. Once a dog gets taken down, his damage just goes up. In other words, it is necessary to add more tank healers as the fight progresses.

On top of that, there is a high amount of traps that get dropped. Don’t get trapped in one of those red ice block traps (more commonly known as a Crystal Prison trap).[hide]Continue reading Raid Rx: How to heal the Shannox encounter[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Analysis / Opinion[/hide], [hide]Raid Rx (Raid Healing)[/hide][hide]Raid Rx: How to heal the Shannox encounter[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

Pop law abounds in [hide]The Lawbringer[/hide], your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. [hide]Mathew McCurley[/hide] takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

The machinima and streaming communities built around World of Warcraft are filled with some of the most talented and creative people in gaming, from awesome musicians to dedicated streamcasters. The first time I ever got to experience the WoW beta back in 2004, I was watching someone stream footage of their human warlock messing up mobs in (if I remember correctly) Westfall. Streaming is beneficial to gaming, MMOs, and e-sports because of video games’ competitive nature and spectator-oriented design.

You’ve probably heard of [hide]Senate bill S.978[/hide] already, most likely from many video game blogs and news outlets or YouTube campaigns fighting against the passage of this bill. Bill S.978 aims to institute a «10 strikes» policy, making the unauthorized streaming of content a felony, resulting in potential jail time. The main purpose of the bill is to strengthen the law and punishments available to organizations such as the [hide]MPAA[/hide] and other content conglomerates to stop illegal streaming of millions upon millions of dollars in stolen entertainment. As is the way of things, gamers might be caught in the crossfire.

Some of you fine readers sent me a few messages [hide]on Twitter[/hide] asking me to weigh in on the 10 strikes streaming bill and maybe give a basic analysis of the thing, so I shall oblige. Lawbringer this week is all about the odd future of bill S. 978 and what it could mean for MMOs and WoW.[hide]Continue reading The Lawbringer: The odd future of bill S. 978[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Analysis / Opinion[/hide], [hide]The Lawbringer[/hide][hide]The Lawbringer: The odd future of bill S. 978[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

Every week, WoW Insider brings you [hide]The Light and How to Swing It[/hide] for [hide]holy[/hide], [hide]protection[/hide] and [hide]retribution[/hide] paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog [hide]Righteous Defense[/hide].

Is there anything more stressful than sitting there in front of the valor point vendor for the first time in a new patch, your pockets flush with new (ephemeral) currency, and your eyes wide at all the possibilities of what you can buy with them? All those dead trolls and fire elementals were piled up to bring upon this one glorious moment.

Now. What item is the best choice for you at that moment? You don’t know! The skin flushes, sweat glimmers on your brow, the throat tightens, your mouth becomes arid. A horrified stasis clouds your face as Jamus’Vaz stares at you with open contempt. «Buy something, would ya?»

Okay, there are things far more stressful than that. And perhaps I’m the only one who can suffer a total mental shutdown in front of a virtual shopkeep. Irregardless, such panicked madness does not need to be your fate. There is a very clear path to victory here when it comes to managing your valor point expenditures here that will result in your getting the best bang for your buck in very short order.[hide]Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: The tankadin valor point pick order[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Paladin[/hide], [hide](Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It[/hide][hide]The Light and How to Swing It: The tankadin valor point pick order[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We’re giving each approach its own [hide]15 Minutes of Fame[/hide].

The boss is enraging at 7% health and you’re locked on target, hunched over your keyboard in a white-knuckled frenzy to squeeze every last drop of DPS from your avatar. Finally, the beast succumbs to your assault, and you sit back, exquisitely aware of the tension crumpling your neck and shoulders and radiating into your fingertips. As you pull in a deep, shuddering breath of relief, you wonder if perhaps it might be more natural to simply stand in front of your screen and show the computer, using gestures similar to those of your character, what to do.

Now, you can.

[hide] Dr. Skip Rizzo[/hide], associate director at the University of Southern California’s [hide]Institute for Creative Technologies[/hide], is head of a research project that’s applying the same kind of technology used in the Xbox Kinect to the World of Warcraft. The aim of the project, however, is not so much to turn games like WoW into virtual tarantellas of movement and gesture but to make games more accessible to disabled players and to open new avenues for rehabilitation, therapy and even education. The project’s Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST) middleware integrates full-body control with games and virtual reality applications, using tools like [hide]PrimeSensor[/hide] and the [hide]Kinect[/hide] on the [hide]OpenNI[/hide] framework.[hide]Continue reading 15 Minutes of Fame: Full-body WoW with motion-sensing software[/hide]Filed under: [hide]Interviews[/hide], [hide]15 Minutes of Fame[/hide][hide]15 Minutes of Fame: Full-body WoW with motion-sensing software[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

[hide]World of WarCrafts[/hide] spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. Sample the whole spectrum on our [hide]Arts and Crafts in [/hide][hide]WoW[/hide] page.

We’ve featured plenty of various artists here on WoW Insider, each with their own unique style and method of bringing their characters to life. Today, we’re going to chat with one who has taken the fan art just a little further by bringing those artistic creations to life through story and art. Kelly Aarons should be a familiar name to those who follow WoW Insider’s weekly comic Safe Passage, but her comic [hide]WoW Eh[/hide]? has been chugging quietly along for much longer than Safe Passage or even its precursor, Byron the Tauren Rogue.

Launched in October 2008, WoW Eh? started out as a wacky series of strips about an unlikely pair — a fiesty blood elf paladin named Kissless and a gentle, nature-loving tauren named Cadistra. Over the course of a couple of years, the comic has transformed every step of the way, from artistic style to content. Remaining ever constant amidst the madness, Cadistra, Kissless, and their camaraderie through it all form the backbone of the comic and its story. We sat down with Kelly and had a chat with her about comics, art, writing, and Warcraft.[hide]Continue reading World of WarCrafts: WoW Eh? and Safe Passage artist Kelly Aarons[/hide]Filed under: [hide]World of WarCrafts[/hide][hide]World of WarCrafts: WoW Eh? and Safe Passage artist Kelly Aarons[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

The last few weeks have not been kind to PVPers, to be sure. Despite the new arena season starting on Tuesday of this week, conquest points were accidentally down-converted to honor points a week early, with the excess irreversibly converted to gold. Then, making matters worse, Blizzard launched a new tier of ilevel 371 Season 10 gear on Tuesday without warning, just a week after making ilevel 365 Season 9 gear available for purchase with honor. It was a pretty unique double screw, and it rightfully had a lot of players incensed.

In a rare moment of humility, Blizzard has taken to the official forums to address the pair of what the company is calling «mistakes.» Specifically, Community Manager Zarhym (who looks adorable when [hide]posed next to a lifesized wyvern[/hide]) had this to say:

The full post, which is available after the break, gives a pretty good summary of the facts behind the case, and perhaps more importantly, what Blizzard intended to happen for the start of this and subsequent new arena seasons. In short: After an arena season ends, that season’s PVP tier, previously available only via spending conquest points, will be available for purchase with honor points to give players one last opportunity to spend excess HP before the impending conquest-to-honor conversion (essentially, a one-week-only sale). When a new season begins, the old, sale-priced PVP tier will be taken off the market in lieu of new, better, current season gear.[hide]Continue reading Blizzard explains, apologizes for PVP Season 10 gear debacle[/hide]Filed under: [hide]PvP[/hide], [hide]Blood Sport (Arena PvP)[/hide], [hide]The Art of War(craft) (PvP)[/hide], [hide]Cataclysm[/hide][hide]Blizzard explains, apologizes for PVP Season 10 gear debacle[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide] | Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

Android and iOS device users have had the luxury of using the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator, a software version of Blizzard’s downright necessary keyfob authenticator, on their phones or tablets for a while now. As of today, Windows 7 Phone users can also take advantage of the Mobile Authenticator by downloading it from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

At this point, there’s pretty much no reason not to have an authenticator — they’re 6 bucks and free to ship for a physical device and no cost at all for a software version available for every major mobile platform. Just get it!

[hide]Battle.net Mobile Authenticator now available for Windows 7 Phones[/hide] originally appeared on [hide]WoW Insider[/hide] on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our [hide]terms for use of feeds[/hide].[hide]Permalink[/hide] | [hide]Email this[/hide] | [hide]Comments[/hide]

No comments Posted in Без рубрики | 01.05.2013 

Компания Blizzard Entertainment в очередной раз [hide]напомнила[/hide] всем игрокам MMORPG World of Warcraft о «принципах честной игры». «9-й сезон недавно завершился, новые PvP-награды нашли своих героев, уже идет 10-й сезон, — говорится в сообщении, почему-то названном «Порядочность и приветливость». — Помните, что «читы» в World of Warcraft совершенно недопустимы, и использование уязвимостей в системе рейтинговых PvP-матчей не является исключением. Перед награждением победителей 9-го сезона мы провели тщательное расследование действий отдельных игроков и команд, явно пытавшихся манипулировать рейтингами».

К ним были применены соответствующие меры, и те, кто занял высокие места, прибегнув к нечестной игре, остались без наград. Однако весьма нередки случаи, когда может показаться, будто игрок использовал нечестные методы для достижения своей победы, в то время как на самом деле он играл честно, как и подавляющее большинство других игроков. Для нас очень важно, чтобы санкции применялись лишь к тем, кто их действительно заслужил, и для этого мы делаем все возможное».

Blizzard продолжит свои усилия по обеспечению честной игры, поэтому вскоре в рейтинговую систему подбора соперников введут некие изменения, затрудняющие манипуляции с рейтингами.