Big News Of The Week

Another Year, Another Arena Tournament

Blizzard announced the 2010 North American arena tournament this week, and put forth nearly the same template as last year, with a few small changes. The arena tournament is a competition based on the Arena System in World of Warcraft. If you register for the tournament, you will be competing on regional tournament servers — separate from the live servers — for an opportunity to advance and play at the live events and win prizes. The cash prize package for the tournament amounts to more than $200,000.

Rumors And Scuttlebutt

Look All You Want, But Don’t Touch

Would you take a look at that? Blizzard launched a website that robbed millions of people of hours of their lives this week: The Concept Art Gallery. It’s a look back through Blizzard’s artistic history for at least 15 years of color, black and white, pencil, CG, you name it. It’s truly remarkable.

Town Cryer

Magro of Garona writes: I have a farming toon who is an herbalist and a miner. Is there a way to have “Find Herbs” and “Find Minerals” both active at the same time? If not, is there an easy way to switch between the two via key binding or macro?

Leonard S. writes: I am an American high school student on a study abroad scholarship in China. I would love to keep up with your podcasts, but neither the archive.org feed nor the itunes feed work.
Is there any way to get my fix of The Instance from this place?

Drop Of The Week

We Could Do This Every Week

After our Drop Of The Week last week, we got all manner of suggestions for this week, and none of them were so full of win as Pug Checker.com. You want to know at a glance whether or not the healer that you just picked up has ever even run Pit of Saron? Just hit up pugchecker.com, and you can have just the facts, ma’am.

Giveaways Rule!

As we announced on The Instance #185, we’re giving away a 30-day WoW play card this week.  Listen to find out if you won, and listen to find out how you can win the new prize we’re awarding to one lucky listener this week!

Additional show content provided by Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz, James “Acuzod” Jefferies and the outstanding Instance Community.

Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, FigurePrints!, TypeFrag and SquareSpace for sponsoring this episode.

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Big News Of The Week

Everyone Is Talking About The New Store Items

Blizzard surprised us on Thursday with the release of the Celestial Steed in-game mount and the Lil’ XT companion pet, as purchasable items in the Blizzard store. The Celestial Steed is a starry supernatural horse that sprouts wings in Outland and Northrend, and flies at +310% of your run speed, if you already have a 310-mount. ‘Lil XT is a miniature version of that memorable Ulduar boss – XT-002 Deconstructor.

Vashj’ir Looks Wet

It’s a level 78–82 zone coming in Cataclysm where players will be called to explore the depths of the Great Sea and stop the naga from seizing immeasurable power from the realm of Neptulon the Tidehunter. This expansive underwater zone will feature an unprecedented fight for survival against the naga overwhelming the area, several new quest hubs — including Alliance and Horde naval ships and submarines — all-new underwater travel and combat mechanics, several pocketed undersea caves free from water’s grip, two new five-player dungeons (Throne of the Tides and Abyssal Maw), and the first-ever opportunity to explore the remains of the once-majestic city of Vashj’ir!

Rumors And Scuttlebutt

Would Blizzard Alter The Level 40 Gear Switch?

A poster named Tamryel delivered a veritable manifesto on the subject of changing the way players consider gear for their lower-level characters, and got an interesting response from Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street a couple of days ago. Tamryel’s complaint was that

loot drama is something that this game has far too much of and should be limited,

and his suggestion was that Blizzard do two things differently: make the armor type a class wears at endgame the armor type they wear at level 1, and prevent each class from equipping a different armor type.

The Blizzard Friday Night Developer Chat

You had questions, and Blizzard answered some of them. Friday night was the most recent round of Blizzard’s online text chat with the community, and a couple of our biggest questions were addressed.

Town Cryer

It’s an all-calls Town Cryer!

Drop Of The Week

A More Elite Armory

You know how, like everyone else in the entire world of Warcraft – you hate gearscore? You hate it with a passion and so does everyone else. Except you still run three different mods that incorporate gearscoring and secretly, you feel quite conflicted about this. Well conflict no more! The elitist armory gives you much, much more to scrutinize about that complete stranger who wants in on your Sarth + 3 drakes run than you ever imagined.

Additional show content provided by Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz, James “Acuzod” Jefferies and the outstanding Instance Community.

Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, FigurePrints!, TypeFrag and SquareSpace for sponsoring this episode.

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Big News Of The Week

All This Class Change News Is A Little Overwhelming!

Blizzard posted no less than 9 new assessments of class changes coming in version 4.0 of World Of Warcraft later this year. Every class except paladin has been given the same, thorough explanation, and the result has been to dominate discussion among WoW players around the world for the last few days.

• Shaman –
• Priest –
• Warlock –
• Warrior –
• Death Knight –
• Rogue –
• Hunter –
• Druid –
• Mage –

Rumors And Scuttlebutt

Mekkatorque Is A Little Big-talker

After rumors spread throughout Kharanos and Ironforge about Mekgineer Thermaplugg preparing his irradiated soldiers to meet the growing gnomish clamoring for the reclamation of their once-great city, High Tinker Mekkatorque today exclaimed Operation: Gnomeregan to be imminent, describing his former ally Thermaplugg’s irradiation of the beloved city as “a date which will live in a proportionate rate of increase in impropriety!” Speaking to a small conglomerate of various Alliance representatives, Mekkatorque pointed out that the time to strike is now. After all, Thermaplugg has eluded death for years to keep his reign over Gnomeregan; and with the fall of the Lich King, the last great threat to the citizens of Azeroth, the chance of any cataclysmic event taking place in the foreseeable future is “less than 12.7%,” Mekkatorque’s leading combat medical advisor Doc Cogspin purported.

The Regular Edition Of Starcraft II Is A Little Box

They’re calling it The Ultimate Wings of Liberty Experience.

Silence looms over the ruthless conflict between Terran, Protoss, and Zerg – but the ghosts of the past whisper your name.

This week, Blizzard announced quite a package in their forthcoming Starcraft II collector’s edition.

Town Cryer

Cooleke from the Akama server writes:  How do I know if I’m a ninja?

Drop Of The Week

A Turn-key Guild Website Is A Little Bit Cool

Guildzilla looks like it might be the solution to your guild website woes. Do you have guild website woes? Sure you do. You’re looking for a guild website service that gives you everything.

Additional show content provided by Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz, James “Acuzod” Jefferies and the outstanding Instance Community.

Make sure you check out WhatsTheMats.com!

Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, FigurePrints!, TypeFrag and SquareSpace for sponsoring this episode.

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Big News Of The Week

Blizzard Erects A Gearscore Of Their Own

In what can only be described as a natural next step for WoW, Blizzard announced the forthcoming Equipment Potency Equivalence Number system today, much to the surprise of… no one. With this new system, you’ll no longer have to wonder about your perceived or actual worth as a player. Your Equipment Potency Equivalence Number, automatically derived from the quality of the gear you currently possess, will be placed on your character sheet and in the Armory, and also displayed over your character’s head in-game as an easy-to-read bar-like object that steadily grows as you acquire loot. Thanks to this new system, no one will be able to ignore the fruits of your long, hard journey toward gear perfection.

Rumors And Scuttlebutt

World First Solo Of A Northrend Raid Dungeon

We don’t have solid, unimpeachable proof of this yet, but it looks like a druid on the US Garrosh server has become the first player to solo Naxxramas, presumably on 10-man mode, this week, according to both videos of the feat and witnesses who saw the realm first achievement displayed.

Blizzard Set To Announce Secret “Next-Gen” MMO

This is pure rumor, but it comes from the guys who got every detail of what was announced at Blizzcon last year correct almost two weeks in advance, so we’re going to go with it. At the Liepzig Interactive Entertainment Conference in two weeks – April 16 – Activision is expected to put on the dog, with a full house seeing for the first time… “Future Chaos Cronicles: The Zero Sum Agenda”. It’s a shooter, and an MMO, with a spy/espionage theme, totally new IP, and from all we’re hearing about the setup at the Liepzig Interactive Entertainment Conference, it’s going to be the biggest announcement of all time.

Morhaime Wants To See WoW, The Primetime TV Series

In an interview with Game World magazine this week, Mike Morhaime  not only gave us a strong signal that the forthcoming World Of Warcraft feature film will be in theaters during the Summer of 2011, but he introduced plans for that movie to spawn a television series that Blizzard is pitching to the major networks. “Collector’s Edition” is the working title of the show, and Morhaime said “It’s the natural progression for us that this excellent intellectual property find it’s way into every type of media outlet available, and television is just the perfect fit for the story we want to tell that follows the story we’re telling in the movie.”

Town Cryer

Raymundoo from the Ghostlands Server writes: I am a level 67 shadow priest and I was wondering what would be the best tree to build for a healer. I heard Randy uses the disipline tree and it works for him greatly. I thought Holy would be the best way to go because its the purest one from what it looks like. I want to respec because I want to start learning how to heal for end game content. I just wanted to know, what is the difference between the two and what would you prefer for dungeons/raids?

Drop Of The Week

Everybody Needs Someone. Someone To Love.

As we reported late last year, Blizzard has high hopes for the applicability of their in-game grouping system to enable entirely different, yet profitable businesses. This week they opened the Battle.net Matchmaking System, a combination LFG, website community, and… personals ads. We think you should check it out.

Additional show content provided by Darrell the Tipgiver, Steve “Buxley” Pietrowicz, James “Acuzod” Jefferies and the outstanding Instance Community.

Special thanks to DogHouse Systems, FigurePrints!, TypeFrag and SquareSpace for sponsoring this episode.

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