Posts with tag apps

Reader Jiang sent us a tip about his new iPhone application (App Store link). It's a realm status application that will track your realm's up and down times straight from Blizzard's page so you can check them anytime on your iPhone. And that in itself isn't that amazing -- there are other apps that will do the same thing, and even some that will do it for free (Jiang's app is $1.99). But Jiang's app will also deliver Push notifications for you, and that's something I haven't seen before in an iPhone app. You can set notifications for multiple realms, and then whenever one goes up or down, you'll get a notification on your iPhone about it.

A few of the other apps are working on implementing Push notifications, so if you're patient, you might be able to get them for cheaper (or even free, though it usually does cost money to run a notification server). But if you absolutely want up-to-the-minute notifications when servers go up and down and are willing to put a few bucks towards a piece of iPhone software, there you go.

WildTangent is a company that started up around ten years ago (they originally made game plugins for Winamp, if you remember that) that's recently gotten a reputation for "bloatware." They've made deals with PC manufacturers like Dell, HP, and Acer to bundle in their software on the harddrive when you buy it. (Most users familiar with PCs find these software bundles more of a nuisance than anything else.) But nevertheless, WildTangent claims up to 20 million users worldwide, and they continue to make deals, the most recent one being with none other than Blizzard. According to a press release on their website [PDF], World of Warcraft's trial downloader will now be included with all installs of WildTangent's ORB software, which means that whenever you buy a new computer from a dealer WildTangent has hooked up with, there'll be a program already installed on your PC that will let you download and play World of Warcraft, among the many other games WildTangent has already included.

This likely isn't targeted at you, dear audience -- odds are that you've already got the discs for WoW, and if you do buy a new PC, you'll probably still delete WildTangent's app and install WoW yourself. Instead, it's a stab at picking up new subscribers -- people who might not already know about World of Warcraft or PCs may see the icon on their new desktop, double click it, and find Azeroth for the first time. The press release even notes that WoW subscribers still in their trial month are counted as subscribers, so odds are this is a random attempt to pick up a few more subscribers from people who aren't willing to go get the game themselves.

There's one more thing to note here: Activision isn't mentioned at all.

The Wordy Warrior covers a well-traveled subject in an interesting way in her latest post. We've already talked in-depth about how to get into a good raiding guild (and we've even covered some amazing guild applications), but straight from the trenches of guild leadership, Ariedan sends an open letter to anyone applying to her guild with, some might say, the wrong attitude.

Here's the thing: especially if you're applying to a progression guild, odds are that they don't need you. They're progressing just fine, and bringing you in just opens the door for more drama. It's a risk, and it's your job to convince them to take that risk, hopefully for the benefit of both. So if you show up to an application and don't take it seriously, and flip out when they question your background, and expect them to take you on without any proof you'd be valuable to them, don't be surprised when they laugh you right out of their forums.

We're probably preaching to the choir here -- if you're reading this site, you probably already have at least one clue, and are either in a guild you like that is not a raiding guild, or are in a progression guild that you got into because you were able to justify that risk. But if you're still having trouble figuring out how to get where you want to be, take WW's advice to heart: it's on you to justify your entry to the guild, it's not on them to put up with you.

Last week, when we reported on the Facebook I Play WoW app reaching a full 100,000 users, a lot of commenters mentioned another app over there, Hearthstone, that's got a good reputation from the people who use it. I checked it out, and indeed, it's an excellent alternative (or addition -- there's nothing keeping you from using both) to let you show your WoW characters off on Facebook.

Just like I Play WoW, Hearthstone pulls your character information directly from the Armory, and displays it in a number of ways around Facebook, including, if you so choose, on your profile pages or on your wall. A few of our commenters said they liked Hearthstone's display better, but I didn't see any major differences there -- they both display your character, class, level, and server, and both will click through to pages where you can see more stats and discuss the character with others. Hearthstone will also let you change your character's image to a custom choice and enter a bio, though I Play WoW has some customization options as well. Hearthstone has an "equipment history," so even if you shard those epics you can still brag about having them. And finally,Hearthstone will let you play with the characters right on Facebook, and you can /salute or /duel the characters of your friends.

Overall, they're both worth checking out if you want to show off some of your World of Warcraft progress on Facebook. Obviously, I Play WoW is bigger, but as our commenters pointed out, Hearthstone has some excellent features as well.

If I'd had this tool a couple weeks ago, it would have made my last Build Shop much easier. Respec is a desktop talent calculator for the Mac (10.4+, Intel/PPC), and it works great as far as I can tell. In addition to talent-calculation basics, Respec has the following features:

• Save specs for later tweaking/reference
  
• Import from the Armory
• Export to Blizzard's calculator
  

You might argue that in this day of a web tool for everything, working on every platform, desktop tools like this are somewhat superfluous -- but that's only until you don't have internet access. Now you can play with talent specs on the plane! It's good to see someone developing WoW tools for the Mac, too. One feature request: export to Wowhead's calculator. Much cooler than Blizz's, in my opinion. By the way, what do you all think of the spec above? I was thinking of taking my warlock out of mothballs to try out that cool-looking Felguard that's always stomping me in PvP.

[thanks, Mike]