The Instance Podcast

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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