It looks like Noblegarden started a trend: the Equipment Manager, Blizzard’s answer to Outfitter et al., is being delayed and will not be included as part of the upcoming patch 3.1. The cited reason is that “certain issues were encountered…that could not be resolved in time” to be included with the patch, and they would rather delay to “ensure wow goldthat this feature meets our standard of quality.” Does this mean the patch is coming pretty soon? One can only hope. This is especially disappointing with dual spec coming as a major feature in the patch, and with Outfitter’s author pulling the mod from distribution; people will be needing ways to switch sets quickly more than ever. Fortunately, Addon Spotlight has you covered – come on over and read all about some alternatives to Outfitter.

Today David returns to All the World’s a Stage, still taking a break from his series of roleplaying lore guides for World of Warcraft. Instead, he shares a few thoughts especially for people who may roleplay all the time without realizing it. There are lots of people playing World of Warcraft out there, and if you gave a survey to each one of them, asking, “are you a roleplayer?” most of them would probably say “no.” But if you actually listened to them, or engaged with them in conversation about it, you might learn a lot of things that surveys usually miss. Many people who say they are not roleplayers actually have an imagination of their character’s backstory, personality, or even just individual style. They may not know how to act out the character, and they may not have friends they feel they can act out with, yet at the same time, they do have a sense of their character as their own little creative exploration. The distinction between roleplayers and non-roleplayers is not as clear as people seem to think. In fact, there’s a whole

Interoperability has done a great job of improving tech industries before, so now the biggest companies in the tech industry are discussing ways to make it happen in virtual world’s. Unfortunately for those who like that notion of interoperability, it’s not going to be happening just yet. But a group of representatives from some of the biggest and most powerful technology companies on earth–including IBM, Cisco Systems, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Google and Sony, as well as from leading virtual-world developers like Second Life publisher Linden Lab, the Multiverse Network, Mindark and others–is hoping to change that in the not too distant future. The first really public shot in this battle was fired Wednesday when Linden Lab and IBM announced their intention to work toward a day when virtual-world users can port a single virtual identity from one service to another. It sounds like a reasonable idea, but there is no progress towards interoperability being achieved yet. Do you think it’s a good idea?

Finally, we come to the end. Icecrown is the very last zone in Wrath, and a very gloomy one it is (in my opinion). This zone, as well as Storm Peaks, was designed with flying mounts in mind, but like Storm Peaks it still has flight paths for those of us who prefer to travel on autopilot. And like Zul’Drak, all the flight paths are neutral, being controlled by either the Argent Crusade or the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Unlike either of those zones, however, the FPs in Icecrown are extensively phased. Only two of them, Argent Vanguard and Death’s Rise, are accessible immediately upon entering the zone, so don’t go cruising around trying to pick up all the FPs. Just go through the normal quest lines and you’ll unlock all four of them sooner or later. Argent Vanguard. This one is open straight off the bat, and the quests from here (and from your faction’s airship) will lead you through the zone. Aeden Moran (88,78) is the flight master. Crusader’s Pinnacle. More of a stepping stone, I don’t remember there being a lot connected to this

The Army’s Artificial Intelligence invades WoW by Michael Gray Nov 6th, 2008 Joe Martin at bit-tech.net picked up an article on Gizmodo talking about the coming invasion of Army Artificial Intelligences masquerading as real players in World of Warcraft. According to Dr. John Parmentola, the plan is to test the AI’s ability to be a “fake” human by letting it interact with real humans in a virtual world. My first reaction was, “Whoah, cool. All your base are belong to us.” But after a moment’s thought, this might not actually be such a great idea. Given the communication skills of some players (especially in the battlegrounds), I’m not seeing this as a litmus test of what in-game speech can pass for spoken by real people. While I’m pretty sure the AI won’t communicate like a roleplayer, the AI could probably get by with a series of “lol” and “kek” typed out in rapid succession. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about the military using WoW (or WoW-like systems) for training purposes,

WoW: Latin American Language Pack Ready for Beta Blizzard announced that the beta version of the ‘Latin American language pack’ is ready for download. Asking players for feedback, devs also said: In preparation for the upcoming Latin American-Spanish version of World of Warcraft, we are excited to invite our players to try out the beta version of the Latin American-Spanish language pack. To participate, please download the language pack. For additional information, please refer to the FAQ. You can discuss any feedback regarding the Latin American-Spanish language pack on our official forums, where our quality assurance representatives will be on hand to read and respond to inquiries and reports.

WoW Moviewatch: Hallow’s End Special   The Myndflame team is back with a just-in-time release for this year’s Hallow’s End. The Myndflame community collaborated on this machinima, and I think you can see the results of a team effort. Those folks are already known for their humor, and the Hallow’s End Special isn’t a let down. The basic setup is that it’s Hallow’s End, and everyone should have a good, scary costume. Thrall is having a bit of a challenge, and finds a book to help him on his way. (One minion tells us that his mom used to make him pretend to be scared of Thrall’s costume.) I have to admit, my first thought was “Aww, poor Thrall.” But, it turns out all right in the end. Like I said, Myndflame’s already known pretty well for bringing the funny, and they didn’t disappoint this time, either. I’m always amazed with how much emotion they get into the relatively static faces of WoW, and how their angles set up the humor of their work. Go and see it for yourself on Myndflame! Lastly, I’m

chase, from a healer’s perspective   First of all I would like to thank Blizzard for giving us new cool titles. This is something that we have complained about for years and thankfully they finally gave in!   My heart sank as I read that these class and race titles would be limited to only the first people on the server to gain lvl 80. The only title I would be interested in would be for my main, a full-time raid healer. You could argue that I have enough time to gather some decent gear and be set by the time WOTLK releases… but as we all know skill > gear.   I’ve been raiding for the past few years a healer and although I have DPS alts to help me farm, the knowledge of my main’s dps spec is fairly limited and in this race to level 80, i would be at a huge disadvantage.   I agree that these titles should be rare and exclusive, but in my humble opinion, they should not be limited to only the first people to reach level 80.   My suggestions would be; A.) Increase the amount of available titles to first 25 people. or B.) Increase the amount of

Stop removing content. This deals with the old Naxxramas instance.   The old Naxxramas was a great dungeon. I’ve only been in once, but I could tell that it was a brilliantly designed tactics-heavy dungeon. It was also without a doubt the hardest dungeon in the game. The mob strength was higher than those in AQ40, so only players equipped with the highest end-game pre-BC gear had a chance. Coupled with its extreme focus on tactical precision, it was difficult for any guild, and remains difficult even with level 70s. That led to a decision to move the dread citadel to Northrend and restructure it as a 10-25 man raid. That’s a good decision, and I support it, with one exception: I don’t think that old Naxx should be removed.   Not only was it a good dungeon, but it had some of the best items in the game, which, given Blizzard’s stated policy of not rebuilding items, will never be seen again. Atiesh remains the only permanent Legendary for casters, and is deeply linked to Karazhan, which is probably raided more than any other instance in the game. The

Beta Impressions after the first 1.5 weeks   Background: Where I am coming from.   On the live servers for about 6 months I was a raider. My “main” a druid tank has 5/5 T4 and 1 T5 there would be more but there were personality conflicts in the guild I was in and left and I am currently waiting for the 10-mans in this expansion. Prior and after being a raider I am 2 things. First and foremost a crafter and alt-o-holic. Many of the leaks and official information released prior to getting into beta had set my expectations pretty high. A secondary trait of being an alt-o-holic is that I like to explore for the sake of exploring, unless driven to complete a goal. As such many times I will take a new character on a tour to get the flight point and speed up travel and leveling later. I have been playing since June/July 2005 and I did not have any characters at level cap when tBC launched. I most likely would have if I did not switch factions after about my 3rd month.   The Good: What IMO is looking good.   1. The number of quests at each quest node seems like it will be