FREEMMOGUIDES http://www.freemmoguides.com Your Number One Source for World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online & Age of Conan Guides Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:30:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/ en Tuesday Morning Post: Happy 2009 edition http://www.freemmoguides.com/tuesday-morning-post-happy-2009-edition/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/tuesday-morning-post-happy-2009-edition/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:30:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/06/tuesday-morning-post-new-years-2009-edition/ Filed under: , , ,


Welcome to the first Tuesday Morning Post of 2009. I trust you've all recovered from your wild New Year's Eve debauchery and ready to face the new year bright eyed and bushy tailed, right?

Anyway, you know what would be an awesome way to kick off the new year? With a new patch. This would be the perfect time for 3.0.8 to go live, and with Ghostcrawler talking about changes that will make 3.0.8 but won't make the PTR and yet another 3 AM to 11 AM (Pacific time) downtime this morning, the time is right.

Still, I'm not making any predictions, since I've been terrible at predicting 3.0.8 as it is. It could just be that Blizzard is trying to let the servers recover from the holiday season and we still have a week or two to go for the patch. Either way, we have at least 8 hours of downtime coming up, so now's a good time to get caught up on all the latest WoW news. As usual, I have some of the past week's best content for you after the break.

Continue reading Tuesday Morning Post: Happy 2009 edition

WoW InsiderTuesday Morning Post: Happy 2009 edition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/tuesday-morning-post-happy-2009-edition/feed/ Extended maintenance, some hints of patch 3.0.8 http://www.freemmoguides.com/extended-maintenance-some-hints-of-patch-308/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/extended-maintenance-some-hints-of-patch-308/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:30:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/05/extended-maintenance-some-hints-of-patch-3-0-8/ Filed under: , ,

Maintenance will run "extended" tomorrow for all U.S. realms until 11:00 a.m. PST / 2:00 p.m. EST. The last few weeks we've seen the down time grow as Blizzard's worked out issues, so I wouldn't count on the servers being up at 11:00 a.m. PST. However I'll happily eat my words. However unlike Alex, I will not eat my hat.

We also have heard a couple sources whispering in our ear that patch 3.0.8 will be dropping either tomorrow or next week. We'll have to wait and see on that one. Don't take what we're saying here as any more than a creditable rumor.

However these rumors do have some added credence in that they coincide with comments from Ghostcrawler today such as "These [changes] will be in the next patch (3.0.8) even thought they were not on the PTR," and "We'll be able to share patch notes soon."

No matter if 3.0.8 drops tomorrow or not, there will be downtime. Fable II anyone?

WoW InsiderExtended maintenance, some hints of patch 3.0.8 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/extended-maintenance-some-hints-of-patch-308/feed/ The Queue: Pandapocalypse http://www.freemmoguides.com/the-queue-pandapocalypse/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/the-queue-pandapocalypse/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:00:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/05/the-queue-pandapocalypse/ Filed under: , , ,


Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

On Friday I responded to a question regarding Pandaren, and it turns out I'm about half wrong. Partially right, but also partially wrong, which is certainly a problem. My answer was based off of something I talked about with a random Blizzard employee, but in hindsight that's a pretty poor move on my part, they wouldn't necessarily know the little inner workings of one or two departments within the company. What I said was refuted with quotes from J. Allen Brack and Chris Metzen, which I'm willing to put more weight in as far as game lore goes. The Chinese did, indeed, have a problem with the Pandaren being in-game.

I was right in that there are no laws against virtual pandas getting shivved or whatever, but there definitely was an issue with the Pandaren race, culturally. It's much more likely it just ran into a lot of friction when it came down to dealing with censors and the cultural shift, and it became not worth it to risk losing players over. I'm sure the fact that the Pandarens' original design was much more Japanese (see above) than Chinese didn't help, but that was shifted in the right direction eventually and may not have had an actual impact at all. And with that said...

Continue reading The Queue: Pandapocalypse

WoW InsiderThe Queue: Pandapocalypse originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/the-queue-pandapocalypse/feed/ Compare gear easily with Pawn http://www.freemmoguides.com/compare-gear-easily-with-pawn/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/compare-gear-easily-with-pawn/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/05/compare-gear-easily-with-pawn/ Filed under: ,


Gear is one of the main ways characters in WoW get more powerful, and pretty much the only way once we reach the level cap. However, it can sometimes be difficult to decipher whether one item is better than another - as a rogue, will 10 hit rating help you more or less than 10 Agi, assuming you're not capped? (Less, according to most sources.)

Questions like these are why stat weighting scales were developed; they aim to answer questions like that by expressing how much each stat is worth in terms of "points," which quantify how much each stat helps your DPS/healing/tanking. For instance, Shadow Panther has calculated that if 1 Agi is worth 1 point, 1 hit rating is worth 0.85 points, 1 Str, 0.55 points, and so on. Many different rating scales for various classes and specs can be found around the internet.

Continue reading Compare gear easily with Pawn

WoW InsiderCompare gear easily with Pawn originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/compare-gear-easily-with-pawn/feed/ The future of healing in the Arena http://www.freemmoguides.com/the-future-of-healing-in-the-arena/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/the-future-of-healing-in-the-arena/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:00:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/05/the-future-of-healing-in-the-arena/ Filed under: , , , , ,

If you've been in the Arena during Season 5, you probably have noticed a particular change to the way gladiators fight. It can be summarized in a single word: "Damage." In the bygone days of Season 4, drain teams and Mortal Strike debuffs were all but an entry requirement to high ranked play. Without a strategy to reduce or nullify your enemy's healing, you were unlikely to produce sufficient burst DPS to actually kill anyone. A few double-DPS teams managed to thrive, but for the most part, a gladiator's number one priority was shutting down the healer.

That dynamic is all but dead in Season 5. Players output such a high level of damage compared to other players' health that healing is almost a non-factor in most matches. My friends, Ghostcrawler is aware of this dynamic, and is looking into it. (It turns out, Ghostcrawler mostly plays a healer in the Arena.) As stated by the crab himself, the Arena should not simply be about burst damage. (Nor, however, should it be solely about healing or solely about crowd control.)

Of course, Ghostcrawler does admit he has difficulty saying what the long terms plans are going to be. The design team hasn't had enough whiteboard time to say anything with complete honesty. But he also hopes that as more Resilience gear enters the PvP system, the damage might scale down to be more reasonable. (To quote, "It's mostly just math.") Still, there's hope that future teams will include more than just seeing which team can burst down the other first.

WoW InsiderThe future of healing in the Arena originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/the-future-of-healing-in-the-arena/feed/ Patch Notes 3.0.8 http://www.freemmoguides.com/patch-notes-308/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/patch-notes-308/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:40:15 +0000 CrAzY http://blog.spugnort.com/?p=349 http://www.freemmoguides.com/patch-notes-308/feed/ Rise of the Lich King excerpt shows the other side of the Lich http://www.freemmoguides.com/rise-of-the-lich-king-excerpt-shows-the-other-side-of-the-lich/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/rise-of-the-lich-king-excerpt-shows-the-other-side-of-the-lich/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:00:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/05/rise-of-the-lich-king-excerpt-shows-the-other-side-of-the-lich/ Filed under: , , , ,

BlizzPlanet has an excerpt up from Christie Golden's upcoming Rise of the Lich King novel, featuring the back story of perhaps the lesser known (though no more less powerful) half of the Lich King, Ner'zhul the Shaman. Arthas has gotten banner credit for being the big bad in this expansion (because it's his form that the Lich King is possessing), but Ner'zhul is in there as well, being all evil and angry. And this little snippet from the book portrays very well just what exactly is going on inside that big spiky helmet. As much as little Arthas is lost inside the Lich King's power, there might still be a tiny bit of him that's still fighting back. Is he worth saving or not?

I haven't been really interested in the Warcraft books, but given how timely this is (we're about to go knock that helmet off), and how interesting the story of Arthas has been, this is one that I plan to check out. It's due out later this year.

WoW InsiderRise of the Lich King excerpt shows the other side of the Lich originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/rise-of-the-lich-king-excerpt-shows-the-other-side-of-the-lich/feed/ Server Mergers Take 2 - Ten Ton Hammer http://www.freemmoguides.com/server-mergers-take-2-ten-ton-hammer/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/server-mergers-take-2-ten-ton-hammer/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:21:57 +0000 CrAzY 60364 at http://www.tentonhammer.com Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures will be making another run at merging servers to start the year off on a high note. Therefore, all US servers will be coming down for the merger on January 7th to make a second attempt at merging the servers for 'Bloodspire' and 'Hyperborea'. As you may recall the first attempt experienced a few problems and had to be aborted. Work continued through the later part of last year to help prepare for the mergers and avoid the problems that were experienced last time.

All US servers will come down for the merge of the two US servers 'Bloodspire' and 'Hyperborea' on 7th January at 07:00 EST / 12:00 GMT. There will be no update deployed. The downtime is scheduled to last about 6 hours

read more

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/server-mergers-take-2-ten-ton-hammer/feed/ Steamwheedle Cartel holding a “Black Market” crafting event http://www.freemmoguides.com/steamwheedle-cartel-holding-a-black-market-crafting-event/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/steamwheedle-cartel-holding-a-black-market-crafting-event/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:00:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/05/steamwheedle-holding-a-black-market-crafting-event/ Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


I love this idea a whole lot. A group of folks on Steamwheedle are holding an RP even (which they've done before), but it's a different kind of event than the usual party or dueling tournament. Instead, it's going to be completely peaceful -- they're having a Saturday morning crafting bazaar. Down in the empty vendor stalls of Undercity, they'll have crafters of all types and levels, some with their mats, some where you'll have to bring your own mats, making items aplenty for players. On January 24th, they're holding a "Black Market", where you'll be able to get almost anything crafted that you want (providing you've got the goods). They're also having a raffle, and they'll be serving food and drink as well. What a great idea.

In fact, I'd love to see something like this come to the game at large -- maybe Blizzard could provide a bonus to crafting when it's done at a certain time in a certain place, like create a "crafter's market" weekly on Saturday mornings (scheduled just like the Sunday fishing tournament), where crafters can make sure to be in a certain area ready to craft for any players who might need it, and can get bonus items or currency or mats for their trouble.

For such a social game, combat seems to always end up being the only way for players to connect regularly (not that there's anything wrong with that, but the only way to bond in game seems to be killing things). It would be nice to see more of this type of connection encouraged by Blizzard, with players using the skills they've earned to help each other and both sides getting a nice reward for it.

WoW InsiderSteamwheedle Cartel holding a "Black Market" crafting event originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/steamwheedle-cartel-holding-a-black-market-crafting-event/feed/ Scouting around with the Crashin’ Thrashin’ Racer http://www.freemmoguides.com/scouting-around-with-the-crashin-thrashin-racer/ http://www.freemmoguides.com/scouting-around-with-the-crashin-thrashin-racer/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:00:00 +0000 CrAzY http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/01/05/scouting-around-with-the-crashin-thrashin-racer/ Filed under: , , , , ,

Cabinetsanchez over on LJ has documented something that I saw in action yesterday while running a few instances -- while it's a ton of fun to run my Crashin' Thrashin Racer around (I'm undefeated since I picked up the achievement the first day I got the toy, by the way), players have found a few extra ways to make the Racers work for them. Yesterday, I saw one of my group members using the Racer a few times to scout the instance ahead and see what pulled with what, and as CS says, it worked great: while the Racer will aggro enemies, they won't tag on to the rest of the group -- they'll just reset after they destroy the little car.

CS also says that the Racer takes no falling damage, so you can send it exploring off of cliffs and platforms, and he says that though the car is considered level 60, its aggro range is pretty small (I can attest to this, as we were driving it pretty close to enemies yesterday without it registering on their radar). And he's got an even more devious use (some might say this is an exploit): bosses aggroed by the racer will sometimes despawn after they conquer it for up to 30 seconds or so. That seems like a hotfix waiting to happen, but I haven't personally tried it, so it may not be as useful as it sounds.

The downside of this is that the Racer was meant to be a fun item, and if it really does lead to behavior that Blizzard considers exploiting, they might have to think twice about including great items like this in the future. We'll have to see what their ruling on this is, but hopefully no matter what happens (I'm guessing a quick hotfix, maybe even shrinking the range of the Racer's controller), this won't prevent Blizzard from giving us more fun toys later on.

WoW InsiderScouting around with the Crashin' Thrashin' Racer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

]]> http://www.freemmoguides.com/scouting-around-with-the-crashin-thrashin-racer/feed/