Big News Of The Week

Blizzard All Over GDC Week

The annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco took place this week, and the makers of the games we play and the games we anticipate came out and talked. A lot. Our friend Curt Schilling, for instance, talked to G4′s Adam Sessler about everything from what 38 Studios is up to to… well, you’ll have to listen for yourself.
Anyhow, Blizzard was everywhere this week, giving us new information about the past, releasing tools for use today, and speculating about the future.

Rumors And Scuttlebutt

More From The GDC

Also at the GDC, Companies called OnLive and Gaikai made a splash this week with announcements that they’re within a year of streaming games to browsers in such a way that could handle games such as World Of Warcraft or EVE Online.  To quote Massively’s James Egan, they believe that this technology “will allow low-end PCs to play high-end games via streaming technology, piping in a game experience where all the heavy (graphics) lifting is done on the company’s servers. It’s a significant step forward in gaming provided it lives up to expectations, and the fact that it’s fully cross-platform means that Mac users will be able to play PC titles never ported for the OS. OnLive isn’t alone in wanting to make games more accessible though, particularly when it comes to MMOs.”

Just How Many Games Can They Create?

This week, BlizzPlanet looked at Blizzard’s jobs postings, and reached the conclusion that a 5th game being developed.
1. This brand-new game is not a World of Warcraft expansion, and it is not related to the Next-Gen MMO.
2. In the present, the brand-new game is using the World of Warcraft engine merely for testing purposes.
3. The Client Software Engineer job opening is to hire the person that will have the responsibility to develop an engine from scratch for this game. This new engine will be built depending on the skill and interest of the person hired for this position.
4. Whether this game is based on the three major franchises (Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo) or a new IP, that remains unknown.

Don’t Miss Your Dose Of Gladiator Blood

Upper Deck released the eighth, and latest expansion pack to the WoW TCG this week: Blood Of The Gladiators. This is the one with:

• The Epic Purple Shirt.
• The Sandbox Tiger, which is a toy like the D.I.S.C.O. ball, and will allow you to ride on a spectral tiger in place, like a rocking horse.
• The Foam Swords Rack. This allows players around you to take foam swords from the rack and beat each other up, and it declares a winner!

Town Cryer

It’s an all-calls Town Cryer this week. But next week, we’re loading up a ton of e-mails. A ton!

Drop Of The Week

Dungeon Defense

It’s an iPhone game, from a developer friend of Scott’s, that’s a twist on the tower defense idea for dungeon fans.

And we’re giving away some loot cards! Listen to win!

Additional show content provided by Mean Gene, Patrick from France, Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz and the outstanding Instance Community.

Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, TypeFrag and Godaddy for sponsoring this episode.

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Big News Of The Week

The Global Crackdown on WoW

Wherein we travel around the world talking about the strange political developments afoot, with regard to WoW. Have some links!
First it was China.
Then, China.
Then Germany.
And again in Germany.
And really, we shouldn’t forget Sweden.

Where is this all going? We wonder.

Rumors And Scuttlebutt

Big Addon Rules Change

As we prepped to record the show, Blizzard poster “Frost” just released what seems like, well, a response to our last two episodes. We’re not saying that’s what it is, it’s just a coincidence, but regardless, we discussed the profit viability of mods these last two episodes of The Instance, and just now, Blizzard has said the following: “We’ve been continually impressed by the creativity and expertise on display among World of Warcraft user interface add-ons, and have formalized design and distribution guidelines for them to help ensure their integrity, safety, and quality for the community. Please visit the new guidelines page for more information.” And what does that guidelines page say? It says that you can’t charge any money for any aspect of a mod, period.

Why Are We Suddenly So Thirsty?

In the near future, you’ll be able to see World of Warcraft characters in a new place — the beverage aisle. This summer, Mountain Dew will launch Game Fuel in two World of Warcraft-inspired flavors — Alliance Blue (wild fruit flavor) and Horde Red (citrus cherry flavor) — available for a limited time only. We’ll be announcing further details in the coming months, so stay tuned.

Town Cryer

Jim Bob writes:

I play a UD death knight tank on the Maiev surver. I’ve seen one of my friends automatically mark his targets with skulls as he attacked them when he tanked. Unfortunately he quit wow before I got a chance to ask him. I was wondering if you knew more about.

Jim Bob, we like Adam’s Mark.  You can find it here.

Drop Of The Week

The iPhone Is Finally Worth Having

That’s right, Blizzard is going for the ultimate synergy of WoW security and iPhone functionality – the Authenticator is now an app. For your iPhone. And there was great rejoicing.
Currently, the new application is available in Korean only, but the site says US/EU coming soon.

And we give away five t-shirts, courtesy of Jinx! Congratulations to our winners!

Additional show content provided by Mean Gene, Patrick from France, Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz and the outstanding Instance Community.

Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, TypeFrag and Godaddy for sponsoring this episode.

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- The MP3 File
- The iTunes Subscription

Big News Of The Week

We’re Going On A Spectral Safari

Don’t miss Upper Deck’s “Spectral Safari,” a global, one-day World of Warcraft Miniatures Game tournament at select hobby stores on March 14 and 15, 2009. The victor of each individual tournament will bag one of the biggest World of Warcraft trophies, a Spectral Tiger Loot card! In addition to the first–place prize, high-level finishers will receive minis boosters. Plus, a Red Bearon Loot card will be a door prize at each location. And if that’s not enough, every participant from around the world will automatically be entered into a drawing to have the World of Warcraft character he or she plays online made into a mini. Visit WoWMinis.com for more information or to find a location near you.

Rumors And Scuttlebutt

Read Warcraft Legends. Please. We Won’t Even Charge You.

That’s right, TokyoPop has decided to post Warcraft Legends volumes 1 and 2 on their website for you to read for free. They’re posting a new section of each volume every weekday until March 17th, when Warcraft Legends Volume 3 goes on sale all around the world.

What A Long, Strange Trip It Ain’t Gonna Be

Only a few days ago, Bornakk reported on the WoW forums that “Brew of the Year is no longer required for the Brewmaster meta-achievement. The achievement is still there, just not part of the meta-achievement. We should be putting a new achievement into the meta that just requires you to sign up for the Brew of the Year club, not to drink all 12 of them.” He also said “We do plan to add Noblegarden to the Long Strange Trip meta achievement, so be ready to rock when that starts.”
We decided to look into it, and while the first bit sounds like your Meta-Meta-Achievement reward – The faster_than_epic Violet Proto Drake – is even closer to a reality, don’t jump to conclusions. The Noblegarden achievements are many and varied. They include:
-Finding and wearing the Elegant Dress, which in previous years was an extremely rare drop from the eggs in the starter zones.
-Eating 100 Nobelgarden Chocolates during the celebration, which is not unlikely so much as boring, if that’s the only reason you’re eating them.
-The Sunday’s Finest achievement, which requires that you find both the white tuxedo shirt and the black tuxedo pants in eggs.

Get ready to fight over eggs with everyone else on your realm. Noblegarden is set to start on April 12, and run for one week.

Town Cryer

Rufus writes:

I want to run a guild but am having a lot of frustrations when trying to recruit people.
My questions are:
What kinds of things can I do to recruit good members more often?
How do I get my members to stay in the guild longer and try it out?
Do you think being on alliance makes a difference as to the maturity of the average player?
Does anyone else feel like their server is empty?
Should I consider changing servers?

Shooter writes:
I play a Night Elf Hunter on FireTree.
I have a probLem with hunter aspects. I use all my action bars and still don’t have the space for all my aspects
and moves! I seen Paladins with there Auras in little spaces above the action bars . My Question is why don’t
Hunters Have the spaces for there aspects above there pets attacks? Would It take up to much room or what?

Drop Of The Week

What Gear Do You Wish For?

Gear wishlist generates a, well, gear wishlist for a World of Warcraft™ character. The character’s Armory class and talents select an item ranking from several (mostly external) sources such as Wowhead, Lootrank, and MaxDPS. Gear wishlist is meant to be simple and is NOT configurable! It uses each source’s default rankings, so you big theorycrafters may not find it the most exciting tool in your box, but we found it to be a lot of fun!

Additional show content provided by Mean Gene, Patrick from France, Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz and the outstanding Instance Community.

Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, TypeFrag and Godaddy for sponsoring this episode.

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- The iTunes Subscription