News

• Help Battle Seal Slaughterers in World of Warcraft
  First Ron Paul and Now PETA. Why do these wackos keep picking Whisperwind?
• 25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear
  Stupidest. Thing. Ever. This has to be an April Fools' joke.
• April Fools’ Roundup
  • Blizzard: Introducing the Dance Battle System
  • Blizzard EU: P1mp My Mount!
  • TankSpot: Freya's Guardian -- Introduction of Combat Pets!
• PopCap releases Peggle for WoW
  And raid focus plummets accordingly.
• Sixteen Million WoW Quests Completed Each Day
  According to Jeff Kaplan, 16M quests per day are completed in World of Warcraft. Imagine if they could use that power for good.

Discussion: Addons and Exploits

Chris and Dave finally get around to discussing the wide world of addons that are available in World of Warcraft. How important is the addon community to Blizzard? What's the line between addon and exploit? Can you play the game without addons? Should you? Dave and Chris discuss these questions and more.

3 Things

Three addons we love to use, and three addons we wish we didn't have to use.

Show Music

We use two music samples from World of Warcraft during our discussion of The Argent Tournament and Ulduar: AT_JoustEvent by David Arkenstone and UR_UlduarRaidExtAction08 by Derek Duke. We also use two clips from the XT-002 Deconstructor character event.

Downstream, by Shira Kammen, from the album Music of Waters. Fans of the Braid video game will probably recognize this track. You can get this track and other music from Braid at the Magnatune Web site.

Intro

News

• Video Game Downloads on FileFront
  FileFront is suspending operations on March 30, 2009.
• 65% fewer Arena teams in Season 5
  Drastic reductions in the number of people playing arenas.
• So...Arena's Failed...Not Surpisingly
  Ghostcrawler responds to some of the criticisms surrounding arenas.
• Making flasks in Patch 3.1 to give double the reward
  In a recent build of the PTR, flask recipes will create 2 flasks for the same amount of ingredients, but will only last half the amount of time.
• Lead Blizzard Dev Outlines 9 WoW Quest Problems, Admits to Designing Stranglethorn Quest
  Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan (because you can't use his name without his character name) talks about some of the issues he had with quest design in World of Warcraft.
• World of Warcraft Forums -> Mage questions answered
  Major mage feedback from the blues.
• World of Warcraft User Interface Add-On Development Policy
  New add-on development policy "promotes an enjoyable gaming environment for [...] players," but could have done so much more.
• If You Die, Who Will Tell Your WoW Guild Friends?
  Sites can automatically inform your guildmates if you unexpectedly drop your... um, connection.
• Battle.net Mobile Authenticator
  Blizzard will be offering a phone-based authenticator solution for Battle.net that will also run on iPhone and iPod touch.
• New add-on policy makes selling add-ons against the rules
  "Premium" addons to become extinct.
• Chinese World of Warcraft Operator Faces Bankruptcy
  Issues with Chinese standards may cause distributor to go bankrupt.
• Blizzard's new raid model and why it works
  Essay on the raid model in 3.0 makes Chris think.
• Will 3.1 be a success?
  Interesting quote from Ghostcrawler: "While I'm sure some players would love for us to deliver an instance with that level of content every month or so (and throw in a 5-player run to boot!), it's not in the cards, at least not for the next couple of years." Which suggests to me that they're working on SOMETHING that will allow them to churn out content more quickly in the future.
• Does anyone find it funny that...
  Lots of interesting perspective on healing in 3.1 versus 3.0 from Ghostcrawler.
• Utah Game Bill Defeated

Listener Mail

Does Dave really hate World of Warcraft? Why do you play?

News

• Brew of the Year removed from Brewmaster achievement on PTR
• Warlock soul-shard farming a thing of the past?
• More PTR Madness: Tool Tips? Multiple Bosses being tested in Ulduar, Loot starting to show up.

Discussion

The Wrath of Wrath Part 3, Closing Arguments.

• Does gear make a difference in how a class performs and is it more of a factor now than in the past?
• Putting dual specs on the table. Does it matter who is a DPS class anymore?
• Is Ulduar the great equalizer?
• There and Back Again: Looking back on the last four years.
• Wrapping it up

Show Music

• “Redheaded Rider” by Barrett Tagliarino
• “Mumbo Jumbo” by B.D. Lenz

iTunes

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News

• Jeff Kaplan leaves the WoW development team to go work on Blizz super secret MMO.
  http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/12/jeff-kaplan-leaving-world-of-warcraft/
• New trading card game expansion with new loot cards.
  http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/24/new-tcg-loot-cards-announced-for-blood-of-gladiators-expansion/
• Does WoW make players better citizens? Apparently the researcher has never played on a PvP server...
  

  http://www.massively.com/2009/02/12/do-wow-players-make-better-citizens/

• 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament

  http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/tournament/index.xml

• Going green with gaming. ::cough buygeothermal cough:: http://www.massively.com/2009/02/15/greening-up-your-gaming-experience/

  http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00007&segmentID=8

• GuildWatch: Brother Against Brother

  http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/25/guildwatch-brother-against-brother/#continued

• Patch 3.1 on Public Test Realms

  http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Three Things

Three Things We Love and Hate About Naxx

Show Music

“Sailing With The Captain” by Dust Rhinos

iTunes

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News

• World of Warcraft Subcriber Base Reaches 11.5 Million Worldwide
• Paid Character Customization
• Patch 3.0.8 on the PTR
  • A. Class Changes
  • B. Bug Fixes
• Winter Veil Recap
• Free 10 Day Wrath tryout
• Employers screening WoW players during recruitment? (via Synessa)

Discussion

The Wrath of Wrath: Part 2 or Arthas is a Pussy

Dave: Is it just me, or is the Lord of Ultimate Evil getting his ass kicked? What we may (hope) have in store.

Dave: Why class homogenization is a bad thing.

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News

• All wrath all the time.
• WoW reaches 11million players
• WotLK sets new sales record, 2.8million copies
• Wow 4 year anniversary
• Morhaine: Warhammer and Conan subscribers returning to Warcraft
• WOW paid customization explained
• First level 80 in WOW in 27 hours
• Blizzard: WOW 2 could kill off franchise
• Blizzard: Companies underestimate launching new MMOs

Discussion

Feeling the Wrath of... Wrath 

• Change is good. Or is it?
• Class changes: Like or dislike (pallies gone wild)
• Leveling, more exp required, but it seems to be going by quicker
• DKs, really really fun, but are they viable in the end?
• Endgame, or lack there of...
• The future, kinda questionable. 

Three Things

Top Three Moments so far...

Top Three Disappointments so far...

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Blizzcon wrap up show. Chris and Dave discuss day 2 with Mike and Christy from Analog Hole Gaming. Convention special Three Things We Love & Three Things We Hate.

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