Episode 66 is up
Blizzard Authenticators
Midsummer Festival
Renata vs. the G15 keyboard
Diablo III
Patch 2.4.3 notes
Mod of the Cast - Mob Info II
Listen on iTunes or click here.
DING! Three
Three years. If someone told me the show would still be running three years later and that we’d be the longest running WoW podcast, I would tell them they were off their Elekk.
I started the show as a way to continue doing broadcasting of some kind after there were all these broadcast fees with copyrighted music. I had a background in radio and loved doing it as a hobby, but it was impractical on the internet.
I also like teaching people. I guess it came from having teachers as parents, but I despised teaching. My dad let me teach his physics class a few times and it was great, but his stories about politics and the crap he took from students really turned me off from teaching as a profession.
I also don’t like teaching computer science. I don’t know why because I love reading about it. I think there’s something a little cold about computers that I can’t bring to people, but I can teach gameplay. World Of Warcraft allows people do to so much and I feel privileged that people still listen to the show after all these years and hear what we have to say.
So I’d like to thank everyone involved in the show in every way: the listeners, the bloggers, the fellow podcasters, the guests, Blizzard, Lindyen, and of course, Renata for her undying dedication to this show.
Episode 65 is up
Blizzard announces SecureID for accounts
And Blizzard announces Diablo III!
Mage Roundtable with Christy from Analog Hole Gaming, Dave from In The World, and a special guest.
Blizzard announces Diablo III!
At the Blizzard World Wide Invitational this morning in Paris, France, Blizzard announced that they will be releasing the long-awaited Diablo III. More information to come as I find it. Their web site is currently having problems, but if you want to try, click here.
Secure logins coming to World Of Warcraft
On the heels of what I just wrote about Blizzard needing to beef up security, Blizzard announced today that they will be introducing a SecureID-type device that’s associtated with your account. What this does is generate a random number that you put into your login screen. You and ONLY you know this code and it’s generated every few minutes.
Click here to read all about it on Blizzard’s FAQ site about this device.
Will you recognize when you make a mistake?
Last night, Alachia posted that her account got hacked. I know that Alachia takes steps to protect her computer, but it made me wonder if perhaps Blizzard couldn’t do something extra to help the users.
When people ask this question on the WoW forums, the consensus is that anyone who gets hacked is “stupid” and that they deserve to get hacked because they’re a “failure”. Oh, REALLY?
Take the latest Flash virus. If you clicked a Flash video before it was known there was a problem, are you “stupid” for not knowing that there was an exploit? Virus software generally gets updated once every few days by default. You could set that to check more often, but the point is that there could be a window in which a trojan gets in your system before you get a chance to download the udpate and scan your computer.
It’s an annoying cat and mouse game just to play WoW.
The fact that people need to be made aware of viruses, how to prevent them, and worst of all, need to spend time dealing with it, is an unfortunate side effect of being online today.
But will you recognize when you make a mistake? If you get lax someday, will you realize it? Will you be aware that you’ve done something that might seem insignificant and yet has unleashed something on your computer that even your virus scanner and zonealarm isn’t aware of? Perhaps.
So I ask this: would it be prudent of Blizzard to implement tools on the back end to check where someone is trying to log into your account from? Let’s remove the point about protecting your own computer and that you’re responsible for what happens to it. Now the problem shifts from losing your hard work of building up your character for the last 4 years to Blizzard needing to spend time getting all those items back for you. Yes, it’s much easier to replace items than it is to roll a new toon, but sometimes people don’t get their accounts back.
People claim that if you get hacked you deserve it. I’ll bet those people won’t feel the same if it happened to them. People make mistakes, they shouldn’t have to pay a high price for them. I also think that the amount of effort Blizzard could put in to even put in the smallest bit of protection for the users could save both Blizzard and its customers a lot of time.
A Warm Place
The Midsummer Fire Festival started in Azeroth. Previously, this was one of the absolute lamest holiday festivities in the game. This year, Blizzard put a new twist on the festiviites.
Previously, the best item you could get was the [Captured Flame], a little red wisp that followed you everywhere. The other items were a set of shoulders and headpiece which were pretty useless. Pets are at least interesting to show off and don’t require you to change equipment to do so. In order to get the [Captured Flame] you had to visit each opposing factions’ bonfires and steal them all.
This year, there’s a Midsummer Fire Festival vendor which sells items based on the number of Burning Blossoms you have. This year, I went for the [Brazier of Dancing Flames].
Apart from the prizes, you either get a boatload of gold, or a boatload of XP. This year, Blizzard put bonfires in most of the flightpoints and towns in the game for both factions. If you honor your faction’s bonfire you get 5 Burning Blossoms, and at most 5000 XP if you’re under level 70, or 5g 99s if you’re level 70. If you visit an opposing faction’s bonfire, you get 10 Burning Blossoms, and at most 9000 XP if you’re under level 70, or 11g 99s if you’re level 70.
This allowed me to go from 56 to 58 in less than a day without doing anything more than going from flight point to flight point. I would suggest checking WoWWiki’s page on the festival to get a list of bonfires to visit for each faction so that you spend less time travelling and more time getting XP or gold.
There are two daily quests that you can do: Torch Catching and Torch Tossing. Torch Tossing is easy, you toss a torch into marked spots in a certain period of time. TIP: Set up a hotkey for your torch. Torch Catching is where you throw torches in the air and catch them as they fall. TIP: follow the shadow of the torch on the ground. The first toss is always high and long, the others are short.
Episode 64 is up: win Blizzard Invitational tix
News
More WotLK info
Interview with DJ Wheat from CGS
Win tickets to the Blizzard Invitational in France!
Coming soon: win Blizzcon tickets!
Mod of the cast: Ackis Recipe List
Don’t panic!
I’m moving the whole thing to Wordpress!
And other goodies.
Episode 57 is up
News
Renata’s Reputation Guide
Renata gives an in-depth report on how to get exalted rep on the Alliance side before 40, and how the Horde side is vastly different.