WoW.com

Our economy may still be pretty much in the gutter, but one industry is still going strong. If you glanced at what site you were reading this on and guessed "online gaming," congrats! You win a gold star. Here you go: ★.

Anyway, according to this industry report featured on GameSpot, online gaming overall (including MMOs, in turn including WoW) was up 22% year-over-year in May 2009. 87.1 million people were estimated to game online in the USA, an impressive 28% of our estimated total population.

Of course, a huge chunk of this is browser-based games (think Bejeweled or Yahoo! Games). WoW is apparently the 21st most popular "online locale," clocking in at 2.2 million US visitors. Still, I'd say 21st isn't bad for a game with a subscription fee; 2.2 million players at $15 a month is $33 million a month (assuming the each have exactly one account). The next-closest MMO, according to this report, is RuneScape, at 202,000 players. Really? Aren't there other MMOs with more than that?

Anyway, online gaming, like online everything else, is on the rise. Single-player, localized games are starting to feel positively quaint, although I still think Chrono Trigger is the best computer RPG of all time.

Filed under: Ranking, News items

Warning: This article does contain spoilers for the Argent Coliseum Raid. If you want to be surprised, skip this article!

There's a pretty long thread going on in the General Forums right now that makes an interesting request of the dev team: Let us lose. The argument goes that we've been sort of steamrolling our way through massive challenges and insurmountable odds pretty much the whole raid game, and it's just getting boring. Nothing feels like a threat anymore. We know we're going to defeat it and move on. We need to shake things up.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Why not let us be on the losing side, at least for a few patches? The Lich King himself could use a bit of help in that vein, for sure. The early leveling game did manage to conjure up a few heart-stopping moments where Arthas "let us win," but when it was time to take that to the next level, it seems like Blizzard's sort of backed off and gone stale. Now, we're holding a Ren Faire on his front lawn while his scourge mostly mills around aimlessly and doesn't make more than a token attempt to do anything threatening.

There would be no quicker way to get him to burst back on the scene by having him or one of his lieutenants deal us a devastating blow, one which we will find it hard to recover from.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Raiding, Lore, Bosses, RP

Every day, our tip line gets a number of requests for link exchanges, publicity, and feedback on whether a post would be good for inclusion in the Daily Quest. We're really happy to be able to direct traffic to bloggers with good information, but sometimes we get requests that leave us baffled, uncomfortable, or both. While it's pretty easy to deal with some of these (gold-selling sites wishing to advertise here are a quick, "No thanks"), some of them come from otherwise well-meaning bloggers who want a link, but who may not get the desired results from one. Naturally this leaves us with a bit of a dilemma, and these are the things I think about while nosing around incoming links and my own list of favorite blogs:

Please don't ask us to link your blog. Ask us to link a post.

Even if we love your site and we read it all the time, we still need a reason to link you that's relevant to a subject we're writing about. Readers dislike getting recommendations like "It's a great blog!" or "You're going to love it!" Uh, why is it a great blog? Why should they love it?

Nothing speaks so loudly or effectively as a great post on a good topic. Moreover, if we're linking a post of yours, your blog's main page should be linked as well. Even if we got dumb and forgot, it should be a simple matter for readers to find your central page (and you've got a design problem on your hands if they can't).

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Features, Humor, Factions

Every once in awhile, on a semi-regular basis, at randomly determined intervals, Arcane Brilliance (a weekly Mage column that is apparently also self-aware) likes to indulge in a little self analysis. Unsurprisingly, Arcane Brilliance's verdict is usually positive. Arcane Brilliance thinks very highly of itself, an attribute about which you may already have become painfully cognizant, if you have even briefly glanced at any Arcane Brilliances previous to this one.

Yes, we've done this before. But in a persistent game like WoW, where the nature of things are in such constant flux, I like to take a step back every now and again, gain a bit of perspective, and take a long look at the class I love and its place within that ever-fluid world. I choose this week, as we approach the second major content patch of this second expansion of the World of Warcraft, to do so once more.

On my imaginary WoW timeline (and in this case, when I say "imaginary," I mean completely made up), I have patch 3.2 as the literal midpoint of the game, halfway through the game's middle expansion. There will be one more major content patch in this expansion, and then three more expansions will follow. The next will be called "Maelstrom," followed by a fourth expansion called "Return of the Wrath of the Lich King," and finally, the long awaited but ultimately disappointing fifth expansion, titled "This is pretty much it, guys, now go buy WoW 2...um...of the Lich King." It is as logical a place as any to take a look at the state of the Mage class. Join me after the break for as much commentary as you can stand on Mages: where we've come from, where we are at this very moment, and where the class seems to be going as we march on into a future almost guaranteed to be nothing like my imaginary and completely ridiculous made-up timeline.

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Filed under: Mage, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Expansions, Features, Raiding, Classes, Talents, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

You've probably heard that the Chinese guild Stars has pulled off the world-first Alone in the Darkness, killing Yogg-Saron with no watchers helping. You may have seen the video they posted of their winning strategy. But here's something even more interesting, for me: a Q&A with the guild about their strategy and their experience with the fight.

It was originally in Chinese, but a poster on the MMO-Champion forums did a translation. It's a really interesting read. For one thing, Affliction Warlocks turned out to be the most valuable class, since DPS have to turn away periodically in phase 3 to avoid Lunatic Gaze and a heavy DoT-based class doesn't lose as much doing this.

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Filed under: Guilds, Raiding, Bosses

Reader comments -- ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

Would a Maelstrom expansion mean the return of Maiev Shadowsong? At least one WoW.com reader hopes not.

Kylenne: For the love of everything holy, I hope he's wrong about Maiev. I don't think there's anyone I hate more than her in all of the lore, up to and including the various jerkfaces we've come to know and hate in WoW (including Fandouche Toolhelm). Probably my favorite mission in TFT was killing her over and over to save Illidan from her little red wagon. I'm kind of sad she didn't end up entombed with her girlfriend in Suramar.

Really, she inspires some pretty bad nerd rage in me. I would take an entire raid of nothing but Murlocs before having to deal with that chick again.

You had us at "Toolhelm."

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, [1.Local]

Not content with the current druid tree form, Bruincub of <Preemptive Retribution> on Silver Hand wants to upgrade to something a bit more intimidating. However, posing like an Ancient Conservator isn't enough to turn you into one. This might be a good thing. Sure, Conservator's Grip would be killer in Wintergrasp, and you could start some epic tree vs. tree battles outside of Darnassus. But the fun would wear off about the time you realize you can no longer fit through the door to repair in Orgrimmar and all your armor starts growing kudzu.

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, gold seller ads, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries

This week's list is short but sweet. Tried and true. We're still missing Disgraph (cries) but most others are present and accounted for.

• Check out the latest from LFG.
• NoObz: Who's Up For....
• NPC: Outrage. (I miss my kitties).
  
• Teh Gladiators: Papa!
• WoW eh: The End of a Memory. Again, I love the artwork. It's always evolving. The armor looks fantastic.
• Check out the latest from Kuo, and be sure to read the description underneath the comic.
• Flintlocke vs. the Horde.
• Vincent checks out Twitter in WoW, and tests the Mountain Dew drinks. Well, at least one of them.
• Society for the Betterment of NPC Characters. Dark Legacy Comics.
• GU Comics: Wannabes.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Comics, Sunday Morning Funnies

One of my big beefs with MMOs is that I have friends all around the world and can't play with them. For example, most of Team WoW.com play on US realms, a couple on Oceanic and me and the T in the EU. Of course the biggest problem with playing any MMO will be timezones (especially if you like to raid) but that doesn't stop some titles having just one massive server, regionless servers or allowing you to change realms on the fly. Sadly WoW has none of these and it frustrates me that there's such a divide, even though here in Europe there are cross-language battlegroups and more servers than you can shake a stick at. However given the number of players across the US, EU and China I can understand the reasons for it.

So readers, putting aside region restrictions, logic and languages for a moment, do you wish WoW had just one giant server? Would you like the ability to move from server to server for free at a moment's notice, depending on where your friends were playing? Would you rather the game was a bit more like Guild Wars in that it didn't matter where you purchased the game from?

Filed under: Blizzard, Breakfast topics, Battlegrounds, Europe

We've started getting a few emails regarding the authentication servers. Apparently there are issues again tonight! None of us on staff were actually running into any trouble, so we assumed it was just an anomaly until we saw this thread. From reading through it, it appears that the reason none of us on staff had problems was because we had all converted to Battle.net accounts, and this time around only those that haven't converted are running into problems. Fancy that!

Blizzard is aware of the problem, and seem to be actively investigating it. Keep an eye on the linked thread for updates, and if you want a quick fix to get on and play the game tonight... just convert to Battle.net and you'll be on in no time.

And for the record, when you write in about server outages? If we haven't posted about something yet, it doesn't help you to accuse us of being paid off by Blizzard. We can dream of a bright future where Blizzard showers us with money, but no, that hasn't happened yet. It's much more likely that we just don't know.

Filed under: Realm Status