Filed under: Contests

Enter to win some loot cards from WoW.com and WoWTCG.com

by WOW Insider Staff Jul 4th 2009 at 2:00PM

Is it just me, or have we had lots of EU-only contests lately? First, Lesley gives away some loot cards for the EU, and then Turpster gives away some more. This is July 4th, and it's about time we served the North American side of the globe! (Canada, we missed Canada Day, so we'll throw you in the mix, too). Courtesy of our good friends over at WoWTCGLoot.com (be sure to visit them if you need to know anything about the TCG Loot cards), let's give away some loot codes!

We've got 10 in total that we'll give away to ten random commenters on this post before tomorrow night, Sunday July 5th, at midnight. There's an Epic Purple Shirt, two Sandbox Tigers, three Papa Hummel's Pet Biscuits, and four Party Grenades up for grabs -- to enter, just leave a comment on this post, and since it's Independence Day, how about telling us what your favorite kind of firework is. I was always partial to the black snakes -- most people though they were boring, but I knew how the big ones blew up, and I never really understood just how those darned snakes worked.

One comment per person in the US and Canada only, please, and do be sure to use a real email address when you comment (that you check often) so we can get in touch with you ASAP if you win. Good luck to everyone, and happy Independence Day!

European Fields of Honor Loot Card winners announced

by Lesley Smith Jul 1st 2009 at 4:00PM

This morning's EU loot card giveaway had over 1500 entries! Not bad for the hottest day of the year and midweek! I'm quite impressed and there were some pretty funny comments in there as well. A lot of people want the giant, er, male rooster.

Well we /rolled and came up with three lucky winners who will be receiving an email shortly. You might want to check out Turpster's informative video post from this last night which walks you through how redeem loot cards as well as gratuiteous scenes of a giant chicken being ridden by a gnome. Definitely NSFW.

So, without further a do, /drumroll. The lucky winners are:

Max is the proud owner of the must-have chicken mount El Pollo Grande
Chickyhines can now bash the Ogre Pinata to his heart's content
Maephisto has bagged the groovy Path of Cenarius

Congratulations to all and thanks once again to Tom at Upper Deck International's UK office.

UPDATE: Fields of Honor Loot Card EU giveaway

by Lesley Smith Jul 1st 2009 at 5:00AM

I hinted at this the other day but Upper Deck International here in the UK has given WoW.com a set of shiny, brand spanking new loot cards from the latest Fields of Honor TCG expansion, which went on sale yesterday.

We're giving them away to you, our lovely EU readers. All you need to do is leave a comment in this post before 5PM GMT (6PM CET) today, July 1st, 2009. One of the Big Giant Heads (aka our beloved editors) will then randomly choose which of our three lucky readers will win one card each. Be sure to comment with an e-mail address you check often and have easy access to, because that's how we will be contacting our chosen winners with the codes.

We have three codes to give away, one for each of the cards in the set. That's the awesome chicken mount El Pollo Grande, the Ogre Pinata and the groovy Path of Cenarius.

The only caveat is you must have a European WoW account or the cards won't work (sorry to our American brethren) so please make sure before you enter, okay? Also, you can only enter once and, yes, we will know if you enter more than that. Good luck to all who participate!

Thanks to Tom at Upper Deck International's UK office for the codes.

UPDATE: The competition is now closed! We'll be announcing the winners later on this evening.

Fields of Honor on sale tomorrow

by Lesley Smith Jun 29th 2009 at 4:00PM

Ahh the smell of fresh loot in the air, it must be summer. Well, fans of loot cards and the official Trading Card Game, I bet you have your calendar marked. Tomorrow sees the release of the latest - and possibly greatest - TCG expansion Fields of Honor. Yes, you too could have your very own El Pollo Grande, the greatest mount in the entire history of Azeroth. We've mentioned this thing was rarer than a spectral tiger's tooth, right? Indeed our very own Turpster has been raving about his (insert slightly rude giant chicken joke here) all week.

The best part that is the cards were activated in an earlier patch so you can use them as soon as you find one. No more waiting for 3.1.x or even 3.2. Just to recap, the Fields of Honor loot consists of El Pollo Grande, the Ogre Pinata and the groovy Path of Cenarius. You can also take a peek at Upper Deck's loot card preview page for some really cool screenshots.

But here's the best part. After the success of our last EU giveaway, Upper Deck International here in the UK have very kindly given us a set of shiny European loot cards. Isn't that nice of them? We certainly think so! We're going to give them away during this week's maintenance so check back then.

May Guild of the Month: Dragon Knights on Area 52

by Mike Schramm Jun 23rd 2009 at 1:00PM

We're running late on this one (the beginning of the month was quite busy), but it's not any less exciting: congratulations go out to our latest Guild of the Month for May: the Dragon Knights on Area 52. They sent us a nomination along with many other guilds in the game, and were selected for their originality, community, and raiding performance. Among other interesting things about the guild (which you can read in the second half of this post), they run a guild podcast, an email newsletter, and even a lotto, all along with raiding competitively and leveling up as a guild.

In addition to being profiled here on the site, the Dragon Knights will also win a raid pack from Swagdog.com, where they (and you) can pick up customized shirts and hats with their guild name and logo printed on them. Our Guild of the Month contest is ongoing, so stay tuned to the site for the next chance to nominate your guild to be recognized here on WoW.com. Read on to learn more about the Dragon Knights and why they're our winners for May.

WoW Insider Show Episode 95: Just for you

by WOW Insider Staff Jun 22nd 2009 at 2:00PM

Quite a show on our podcast last weekend -- while, despite lots of pre-show tweaking, I still wasn't able to get audio set up correctly, we were still able to get all our guests on. Both Lesley Smith and Chase Christian joined us to talk about all of the patch 3.2 changes we've heard about on the coming PTR, including Chase's thoughts on Rogues getting Axes, what the Coliseum will be like and the changes to Emblems in raids and Heroic instances. We also talked for just a bit about the Midsummer Fire Festival, which is on the realms right now. Turpster will be doing it, as he's still in the chase for the holiday achievements, but the rest of us are pretty meh.

And we talked about our plans for BlizzCon (live streaming ahoy!), and even gave away some loot codes. The contest from during the show is over and done with (so please don't bother emailing us about Yogg Saron any more), but just so you weekly listeners aren't out in the cold, we'll do this: two random commenters on this post before Wednesday the 24th at midnight will win a loot card code each. That's right: comment on this post (using a real email) before Wednesday at midnight and you'll have a chance to win a Footsteps of Illidan loot card of your own, thanks to our friends at WoWTCGLoot.com.

Enjoy the show, and we'll see you next week.

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Reminder: "Dirty Jobs of Azeroth" contest ends tomorrow!

by Michael Sacco Jun 17th 2009 at 7:00PM

You've got just one day left to enter WoW.com's Geeky Clean "Dirty Jobs of Azeroth" contest! We're still waiting for some really fantastic submissions, so here's the rundown for those who missed it the first time around:

We've got five (5) prize packs of five (5) different Geeky Clean soaps ready for the people who send us a screenshot of your character performing one of Azeroth's dirtiest jobs. To enter, take your screenshot and send it with a text caption or description to contests@wow.com before 2PM ET on June 18th, 2009. We'll choose our five favorites and post them soon after.

Be creative, original, and funny to win this contest! You'll be judged 50% on originality/creativity and 50% on presentation. And be sure to use an email address to which you have regular access when submitting your entries, because that's how we'll get a hold of you!

You may enter only once. The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. Click here for the complete Official Rules.

Vote for your favorite fan-made Arena

by Zach Yonzon Jun 13th 2009 at 2:00PM

Arena Junkies has an appropriately-themed contest going on over at their site where they asked their community of high-rated Arena players to design their own Arena. The community was quick to whip out everything from pencils to 3D programs and came up with a pretty good selection of possible Arena maps. How good were the maps? Well, let's just say I'd take any of the submissions over the awful Ring of Valor Arena. Alright, so maybe that's not a good gauge... but it's worth going over the entries to see what creative ideas the Arena-enthusiastic community have come up with.

The top three winners will receive tickets to BlizzCon while registered Arena Junkies users who vote for the winning maps have a chance to win a Blizzard Authenticator. Pretty cool prizes for a pretty cool contest, so head over to their site and register if you haven't already. New Arena maps would be a welcome addition to the game and conceivably not too much work considering no new mechanics need to be in place unlike the Battlegrounds, which have different objectives. In fact, new Battlegrounds maps using the same mechanics would be an interesting addition to break the tedium.

The Spreading Taint plans pride parade on Proudmoore

by Mike Schramm Jun 12th 2009 at 11:00AM

The Spreading Taint, a GLBT guild that we've featured here on the site before, is hosting an in-game event next Saturday, their fifth annual Pride Celebration. Just like real-life Pride events, they're planning quite the spectacle, from floats of all kinds (I'm curious to see the ">8< Spider Pride" float, featuring spider pets aplenty, both Hunter and vanity), a crafting fair in Booty Bay, and contests like a Naked Dueling event and a modeling competition. They've even got "a professional" shooting footage of everything, so you might be able to see yourself in the official video as well.

As we talked about in our 15 Minutes interview with them, these folks are very social and a lot of fun -- while their roots are in the GLBT community, they're interested in including people from all backgrounds, and obviously this event is open to everyone who wants to have a good time in-game (though they are strictly disallowing PvP -- if you want to fight, go elsewhere). The event kicks off next Saturday, June 20th, at noon server time over on Proudmoore. The parade itself starts at Camp Taurajo in the Barrens, but we're sure no matter where you are on the server, you'll probably hear about them -- just follow the wackiness.

NOTE: All hateful comments will get deleted and repeat offenders will be banned. You don't have to agree, but you can disagree respectfully without personal attacks or insults.

wowTwitter is a Twitter just for your characters

by Mike Schramm Jun 12th 2009 at 9:00AM

I'm not sure how well this will scale, but it's an interesting idea: while it's certainly possible to just create a Twitter account for your World of Warcraft characters (so anyone interested can always see what you're up to), the folks behind a new site called wowTwitter have gone a step further, and recreated Twitter's functionality specifically for Azeroth's virtual denizens. It's very barebones right now, but basically, after you register, you can punch in any of your characters, "verify" them by changing something about them in the Armory (like unequipping the piece of gear on your wrist), and then you can send and receive messages on that character, with special channels created for the guild, your realm, and so on. I thought it used Twitter somehow, but it seems completely separate: they're running their own database and servers, so while the two work the same way (there are "@" replies and hashtags), they don't interact at all.

Which means they'll also have all of the problems that Twitter has had -- when only a few people are using your database, it runs fine, but if it starts to scale up at all, then you run into lots of "Fail Whale" downtime. And I'm not sure we need a whole other system just for WoW characters (though this one does have the nice bonus of "claiming" your character so it can't get impersonated). At any rate, they're in beta right now, and actually hosting a cash money prize contest for the most characters verified and tweets posted, so a link from us will probably show them how ready their system is. If it's your thing, go forth and wowTweet!

The Guild hosts a Worst Guild Candidate Ever video contest

by Mike Schramm Jun 11th 2009 at 8:00PM

The Guild (which, as we were told by Michele Boyd last week, just started putting together their third season last weekend) is having a video contest, with a little twist. They want you to make a one minute video of a potential guildie for The Guild that would obviously get rejected -- in other words, a worst guild candidate ever video contest. So maybe you could clearly be a loot hog, or not know anything about your character (but claim to know everything). Or whatever else you come up with -- it sounds like they want the entries to be as embarrassingly bad as possible. To enter, you'll just have to create a video, upload it to a sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo (make sure you save a high-quality original of it just in case), and then drop them an email with a link to the video.

Sounds like fun. If you win, you'll get featured on their website, and/or have a chance to get your video on their season 3 DVD release. They've also got legal rules over on their site (unfortunately, it's US-only, like so many other contests on the Internet), and have discussions about the contest going on their forums as well. Good luck to all who enter -- we can't wait to see the results!

WoW.com's Geeky Clean "Dirty Jobs of Azeroth" Contest

by Michael Sacco Jun 11th 2009 at 2:00PM

We know that questgivers have you do some pretty ridiculous stuff in exchange for paltry rewards. They have you sift through talbuk dung, swim through pools of muck, and even dress like a murloc (oh, the shame!). But what's the dirtiest job in Azeroth? In the spirit of cleanliness, Geeky Clean and WoW.com are teaming up, and we want you to find it! We've got five (5) prize packs of five (5) different Geeky Clean soaps ready for the people who send us a screenshot of your character performing one of Azeroth's dirtiest jobs. To enter, take your screenshot and send it with a text caption or description to contests@wow.com before 2PM ET on June 18th, 2009. We'll choose our five favorites and post them soon after.

Be creative, original, and funny to win this contest! You'll be judged 50% on originality/creativity and 50% on presentation. And be sure to use an email address to which you have regular access when submitting your entries, because that's how we'll get a hold of you!

You may enter only once. The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. Click here for the complete Official Rules.

Read excerpts from the winners of Blizzard's writing contest

by Eliah Hecht Jun 5th 2009 at 7:00PM

Blizzard recently ran a global creative writing contest: write fan fiction set in any of the main three Blizzard universes (Diablo, Warcraft, or Starcraft - no Lost Vikings, apparently), submit it to Blizzard, and win fabulous prizes. The grand prize winner (one ~~Andrew Moeller~~ Sarah Pine) won a trip to Blizzard HQ to meet the devs, as well as a Frostmourne sword. Seven runners-up got signed novels and other lore paraphernalia.

The winners were announced back in May. So why am I bringing this up now? Well, Blizzard has posted excerpts from all eight winning stories on their web site. I have to say, aside from the overuse of adjectives and adverbs that tends to be endemic to fan fiction (write with nouns and verbs, people), this is some pretty enjoyable writing. I'd like to see the full stories; I wonder if they're going to be released at some point. Edit: To read the entire grand-prize-winning story by Sarah Pine, click here.

Final BlizzCon tickets on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday

by Mike Schramm May 28th 2009 at 3:00PM

We pretty much knew this to be the case, given that it's exactly what happened two weeks ago, but yes, just in case you haven't been paying attention, the second and final round of BlizzCon tickets is going on sale this Saturday, and Neth confirms it'll start at 10a.m. PST again. You'll have to be ready on the ticket page to jump into the queue at the right time, and then hope they don't sell out before you've gotten a chance to grab yours. The good news is that things probably won't break down, but the bad news is that they'll probably go really, really fast, so you'll have to be lucky to get in line before they close the doors.

And if you don't make it to the convention, there's always us: we're planning on covering the heck out of it yet again here at WoW.com, so even if you're not in Anaheim, we'll make you feel like you are. Or if you want to go the streaming video route, we're sure DirecTV will be happy to take your money as well.

So it's not the end of the world if you don't get your purchase done, but there'll no doubt be a lot of disappointed Blizzard fans no matter what. Good luck to everyone -- we'll see you Saturday at 10 a.m. Pacific.

Wowhead wants to send you to BlizzCon

by Eliah Hecht May 28th 2009 at 11:00AM

The second and final round of BlizzCon tickets go on sale this Saturday, May 30, and I'm pretty sure they'll go fast - the first round sold out in half an hour. However, if you miss out on a ticket (or if you think they're just too expensive), you may have a chance to go anyway.

Wowhead, along with APC (makers of UPSes and such), is running a contest over the next few weeks, with a drawing every day until June 18th. June 17th is the last day to enter; all you need to do is fill in your contact details on the contest page, and you're automatically entered for every drawing. Sadly, this contest is only open to US residents age 18 and older ("we know it sucks," Wowhead says).

Oh right, the prizes.

There is one grand prize, consisting of two tickets to BlizzCon, along with air fare and accommodations, an APC UPS, and a dinner with the Wowhead folks. Three lucky first-prize winners will get their choice of a Wii, a PS3, or an Xbox 360, as well as an APC surge protector. And every day that those prizes aren't given out, someone will win a Wowhead t-shirt and an APC surge protector. One of these last winners will be randomly chosen to win a Blizzcon ticket as well, at the end of the contest.