All Things Azeroth #18 - The Real Episode 50!

• World of Warcraft hits 10 million active, valid accounts
  
• Blizzard takes account actions against BG AFKers
  
• Grimtotem Spirit Guide fiasco(my blog post)
  
• Servants of the Betrayer loot cards
  
• Vivendi increases revenues with 1.2 billion from Blizzard making up most of it
  

• Diminishing Returns gone in PvP
  
• Enchanters get to smash Void Crystals
• Spell Haste affecting global cooldown
• Doomwalker and Kazzak loot going BoE as well as 25 mans getting more set pieces
  
• Warrior and Bear tanks get some love
• Shadow Priests get Fear ward
  
• Mage's get a limit to how many Mana Biscuits you can carry
  
• Warlocks can now summon into instances, as well as in Netherstorm
• More love for mages, a change to Ret Paladin gear, and a fishing daily
• Blizzard helps with respec costs
  
• Shout out to Nafy for her Swift Flight Form and Hippogryph!
• Under Developement updated with BG Repeatable, CoT portal in Shatt, PvP gear via PvE means
• Legendary Bow coming to game! (Thor'idal)

• Tigole talks Inscription and hints at what might be the next hero class, Archdruid connected to the Emerald Dream and Malfurion Stormrage!

• WoW Insider tried to trick Blizzard into releasing patch 2.4 to the PTR early (much like they are trying to guess 2.4 on the live realms now)
• Blizzard wins against the gold sellers and spammers!

• Gilead from Dentarg comments on the site
• Jen from Hyper Nonsense podcast writes: 

Medros,

Thank you for mentioning the Hyper Nonsense live show (and test show) from New Year's Eve!  Very nice of you.  There will be more live shows, but I don't know exactly when yet.

I enjoyed the Murloc song at the start of this show! :)  So far, this is my favorite WOW related song.

Thank you for reading my email from the previous show on this show.  I think you read it off just right.  I tend to type like I talk, so maybe that helps it bit.  In any case, good job!  I understand a lot more about how the guild banks in WOW work now.  Nice to see they aren't quite the mess they were in Meridian (though, it seems they do have some problems).

In answer to one of the questions you asked on this show:
Why do I play WOW?  I play because it's fun.  I like the way the characters and settings look, because the artwork is great.  I like how when you use a spell it creates a really cool special effect, (my personal favorite is the lightning bolts my dranai shaman can throw).  I like the storyline, and how you get little bits and pieces in the quests.  I like that you can be as interactive with other players as you choose to.  I like the flexibility in WOW where you can choose to spend all day role playing in one of the pubs, or, off on your own killing merlocks, or whatever makes you happy at that moment.   I find playing WOW to be a great way to just relax a bit after a really bad day at work.  If it's been a really bad day at work, then I find WOW to be a great way to channel anger.  Find a monster, give it the name of the person at work who ticked you off the most, hunt them down and kill them!  For people like me, with anger management issues, this is a great release! ;)  For me, playing WOW isn't ever going to be about figuring out how to get the best and newest gear, or the coolest looking mount.. or whatever else comes along.  I just play because it's fun.

Oh, and one more thing.  I listened to the Blizcast, and ... meh!  Didn't really enjoy it.  I followed the link from the WOW launcher, and expected the show to have much more WOW content than it did.  I have never played Starcraft, and know almost nothing about it, so, that part of the show didn't really do it for me.  The conversation about the artwork was interesting, in a limited way.  Would help to actually be able to see the artwork they talked about!  And overall, the show just felt really... I don't know... cold.  Here we have the high muckety-mucks of Blizzard, who listeners can't ever really interact with.  You can't go find these people on some server in WOW and join them for a raid, or something, can you?  I wonder if they plan to include listener comments at all in future shows.  I will give the show a chance to win me over, but at this point, it's going to have to work really hard at that.

Ok... let's hope this email makes it to you.
Jen

• Teacher Marc writes in:
  

Show 17 is my first listen of your show and I like it. I learned about you from Hypernonsense. I've been a WoW player for 3 years now and have recently gone into a slump. I enjoyed raiding much more pre-BC but the time to lament about those days is long past. I hit Kara very hard with my Horde guild within a month of BC release on Hyjal until the silly 10 man limit destroyed our guild by about May 2007. The raiders went one way and the casual players went another. I find the recent post-BC pvp push by Blizz to be very devastating to the game, hence my slump. Even on a pve server folks are pvp crazy and you get made fun of (by some) if you don't have a season 3 main hand. Getting a group of guildies to do anything is difficult because they are all trying to get their arena rating up. I have tried arena on both my MM Hunter and my Stealth Rogue and I hate it and I won't respec. I didn't come over to WoW to pvp. I simply don't enjoy the pvp experience and yet all the recent nerfs and buffs to classes are programmed to enhance the pvp (arena specific) players. What about those of us that enjoy the pvE experience but don't want to grind heroics with half-brained 13 year olds that barely know how to play their class? Blah to Blizzard on that one. I'm looking forward to WLK because from what I've read it sounds like we're getting back to some good 'ol fashioned pvE-ing.
 
I would like to give you some kudos for your rational thoughts on the Heroic Class. I may not like the title but I agree that it's best to stick with just 1 (for now). The power players want more more more and I feel, as you seem to, that they will become more elitist than they perhaps already are. It is disappointing that Blizzard seems to listen to the demands of these types of players because they aren't the ones that in the end, will keep Blizz afloat. I also play EQ2 and it is surprising how many people I meet in that game that left WoW for no other reason than the players with no life that are constantly insulting the player that are just out to have some fun. WoW has a strong reputation as being a PvP game and that's just sad. Thanks for your advice to the WoW community that we should play the way we want to play ... it needs to be repeated more often in the trade channel (aka The New Barrens Chat).
 
I'll be checking out your back episodes shortly. Thanks for your time.
 
Teacher Marc

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