The Instance! World of Warcraft Podcast

Andrew August 27th, 2006

1. Big News of the Week: PATCH 1.12 Drums of War has finally been released and you can check out the full notes here. Recently GamesIndustry.biz had a very informative interview with the COO of Blizzard, Paul Sams regarding the state of WOW and the upcoming expansion. The new WOW Forums have finally arrive on the Official site. Some of the new features include:

* Updated Character Avatars
* Displayed Talent Builds
* Easier Navigation and Menus
* Increased Signature Space
* Honor Rank Display

Some sad Warcraft news Friday 8/18/06, voice actor Tony Jay has passed away following surgery complications. All of you will know his work as the voice of the narrator on the race introduction screens following the character selection screen. He also worked in many films and also other videogame titles such as Fallout, Planescape, The Bard’s Tale and many more. How nice his long and varied career will live on through the vast number of projects he has worked on.

2. Rumors & Scuttlebutt: A bunch of Burning Crusade Beta leaks are now out on the web. We have an AOL Chatlog with a Alpha tester and some leaks on 1UP also. GRIZZWOLD sent us a totally great idea for a way for Griefers in WOW to be handled. Check this idea out…

Scenario: You’re a lower level player, walking through a pvp area, and you get ganked by a L60 player. You gather some gold, and send a message to the “Mob”. You pay them say, 5 gold and they send a “hit” squad to knock of that other player. You actually put a “contract” on him/her! I think it would be funny if either some players formed the mob and had about 5 L60 horde, and 5 L60 alliance players. Somebody would collect and distribute the $$ and they’d perform the “hit” keeping the badguys stuff too. Imagine even a local “Don” in each major city who you could talk to in some seedy inn.

BROADDUS has also sent us another stunning idea that would be cool to have absorbed into WOW and the Expansion. Blizzard needs to check this out…

Coming home tonight from a restaurant and knowing that I will not be logging into WoW made me realize that it would be really nice to be able to send a message to a player in game without having to log in. The mail system that is in game is very nice and allows for alot of communication between players, however, wouldn’t it be nice to send an email from your gmail account to your character in game because you know you won’t remember this or that factoid when you get to actually play the game? Or to let your guildmates know that hey I got stuck in traffic/eating dinner/working late and I won’t be making the raid time? Especially since most of us have access to email all the time, but rarely can access WoW outside of our homes/recreational digs? Again this may just be drunken rambling but wouldn’t it be easy for Blizzard to allow Broaddus@earthenring.blizzard.com to go through to your in game mail, with the same restrictions all mail has, ie 3 day limit after reading and so forth?

3. Legion of Cain: Want to join the Legion of Cain on Earthen Ring? LoC is now 100+ members and growing. The Legion can always use some freshly scarred Horde faces… JOIN THE LEGION OF CAIN!!! We also take some time to Pimp some Guilds that are scattered across the Lands of Azeroth.

4. Drop of the Week: The Weekly Murloc is a Podcast (and now a website) dealing with certain aspects of the World Of Warcraft. In our show, we try to focus on a different major portion of the game each week, particularly the things a reasonably new gamer will be dealing with. The areas we plan to touch on are the different classes, the races, skills, professions and more. We also include useful tips and hints, like great AddOns to download, really cool drops you might find while playing WoW, a sound byte of the week and, hopefully, some other AMAZING stuff. So what would happen if you transposed Online Gaming behavior onto real life situations? What would happen if people ninja-looted and corpse-camped in real life? World of Offline Gaming is a video that examines the behavior of gamers in their native digital environment, and what would happen should they lose their grip on reality and behave in the real world like they do in their games. Whether you’re a gamer or not, this is good for a quick laugh. JOHN sends us a great Addon to the Atlas Mod mentioned in the last show. It is called AtlasLoot and it basically allows you to see all the items a boss can drop. SPIFF senda us a great video created with the music from the Jonathan Coulton song, Creepy Doll. KASPER from Denmark also sends us another hilarious WOW Video using a Weird Al song. Be sure to check both videos out. As with all the Mods that we feature, they can be downloaded from ui.worldofwar.net, wowinterface.com, and/or curse-gaming.com.

5. Town Cryer: We want to thank all the WOW fans for the CRAZY influx on emails we are receiving. Got some Guild/Realm info? Have a questions/info/tips for us then send them in by emailing at… theinstance@gmail.com

Additional show content provided by The Instance Community, Shawn Basic, Randydeluxe, Dangfraggit, and Lorim. For the Horde all, for the freaking Horde!!!

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Andrew August 20th, 2006

1. Big News of the Week: We didn’t know much about the upcoming arena PvP system that’s coming with the expansion. However, this afternoon BLUE: Drysc graced us players with some additional details on how the arenas will work, and a bit about how the new ranking system will work - and how Blizzard is trying to make these arenas an even playing ground. So without further ado, here’s what we know about the arena:

* When a player enters an arena battle, all buffs and conjured items are purged/deleted. This is done to ensure no outside buffs or items from members outside of your team are able to be used in an arena battle.
* No consumables other than bandages and conjured items can be used while in the arena. There will be a waiting area similar to the current battlegrounds where players on the team will be able to conjure items and cast buffs.
* Abilities/spells/items with cooldowns longer than 15 minutes cannot be used while in the arena.
* Each arena team will be given a rating, and will be matched up in the arena queue against teams of a similar rating (matching within that specific cross-realm battlegroup). As time progresses the matching system will broaden its search up to a limit if a closely rated team cannot be found.
* Ratings adjustments are made in the same way that ELO ratings adjustments are made. This system works by adjusting each arena team’s rating from a specific match based on the rating of the team they are up against. If a team wins against a team of a higher rating, the increase of their arena rating would be much higher than if they had won against a team of a lower rating. This system will help promote players improving their skill and besting teams which may have previously held the top spots.
* At the end of each week, characters receive arena points based on their team’s rating. A
team must have fought a minimum number of battles for the week, which we have announced as currently set to 10 games. A player must have played in at least 30% of the team’s battles that week in order to be eligible to receive arena points. Each eligible player will then receive a fraction of the teams total awarded points to spend on arena rewards.
* Players may spend their points on arena rewards, or save their points until they have enough to get the rewards they desire.
* There is a limit to the number of points a player can stockpile, which is currently planned
to be as high as the most expensive item.
* At the end of a season, players on a team are given a title based on their team’s relative
position on the ladder which will last through the next arena season.

SCHWICK brings a stunning Burning Crusade Expansion info site to the players of WOW. The purpose of his on-going post is to gather all information regarding the upcoming expansion. All information comes from Blizzard and isn’t false (details and information may change over time though.) Back at the dawn of time, the debuff limit was 8. That means only 8 debuffs could be on a monster at any given time - which lead to severe restrictions when you had 40 players attacking the same thing in a raid environment. Warlocks, whose DOT spells actually made up good portion of their damage done, were reduced to Shadowbolting machines. The debuff limit was later doubled, and currently sits at 16, which allows for a lot more flexibility. However, recently the CMs dropped what I consider to be quite the bombshell… in the expansion, in addition to smaller raid size, the debuff limit will be increased again - to 40. Combined with 25-player raids, that’s a heck of a lot of debuffs!!!

2. Rumors & Scuttlebutt: I have to admit, while not the most stirring display of protest I have ever seen, this is rather amusing. Some folks from the Zul’jin server, who are fed up with lag and crashes, took their complaints directly to Blizzard. They didn’t march on Blizzard headquarters, but they did make their voices heard by picketing WOW booth at Gencon 2006. On Apple’s page, they are touting its new Leopard version of the OS X operating system. Apparently it’s profitable now to sell software that keeps your kids away from WOW. After all, 40% of us are addicted, right? Check it out on the lower right hand side of the features. Actiontrip claims he got word from Vivendi that his Closed Beta key will be sent in the upcoming days. If this is true, Burning Crusade Beta might start in the next few days or weeks.

3. Legion of Cain: Want to join the Legion of Cain on Earthen Ring? LoC is now 100+ members and growing. The Legion can always use some freshly scarred Horde faces… JOIN THE LEGION OF CAIN!!! We also take some time to Pimp some Guilds that are scattered across the Lands of Azeroth.

4. Drop of the Week: Got a ton of goodies for you guys this week. First off how about you immortalize your character with MMO ART. Great artwork and some great prices for getting some full artwork of your favorite toons. Have you always wanted to have your idea for a Item or Spell in WOW created? WOW Crafter gives you the next best thing – a customized weapon, spell or piece of armour to your exact uber specifications. We got a bunch of cool Mods this week from various members of The Instance Community. Forget hemming and hawing over whether or not that two-handed axe is better than the two-handed sword you’re currently toting - EquipCompare will help you decide. Whenever you mouse-over an item, EquipCompare will pop up windows showing already-equipped items that occupy the same equipment slot. Don’t hassle with opening up your character window and painstakingly pouring over your item slots in order to figure out whether or not you want to buy something from the AH. We’ve got Atlas, an add-on that puts a tiny icon on your mini-map that looks like a globe. That teeny icon hides maps to every instanced dungeon in the game, and all you have to do is press it! Never again will you stand dumbfounded when a member of your group asks where some obscure boss is located. If you’re anything like us, colored bars just aren’t precise enough for how close you’re willing to come to death when attacking opponents. MobInfo2 gives you an exact number to represent the amount of health or mana each monster has, liberating you from the persistent fear that your 900 damage eviscerate won’t be enough to keep you from dying. TipBuddy is the ultimate, most customizble tooltip mod you can find. With TipBuddy, you have total control over what you want to see in your tooltip. As with all the Mods that we feature, they can be downloaded from ui.worldofwar.net, wowinterface.com, and/or curse-gaming.com.

5. Town Cryer: We want to thank all the WOW fans for the CRAZY influx on emails we are receiving. Got some Guild/Realm info? Have a questions/info/tips for us then send them in by emailing at… theinstance@gmail.com

Additional show content provided by The Instance Community, Shawn Basic, Randydeluxe, Dangfraggit, and Lorim. For the Horde all, for the freaking Horde!!!

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Andrew August 13th, 2006

1. Big News of the Week: Gamespy and Joystiq get a ton of NEW info about the Expansion. Waaaay too much to even try to post here, but it is mindblowing. Blizzard has finally announced the Classes and the Mounts for each of the Burning Crusade races. The Draenei will have Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Priest, Shaman, Mages and will ride the Elekk, think War-Elephants. The Blood Elves, on the other hand are a shocking No-Warrior class. You may only choose Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Mage, Warlocks and will ride Cockatrices. WOW has finally gone Emo on us players with the lauch of the Official WOW MySpace page. Wash off your dark eye-liner, black outfits and head on over to check it out. We also have a winner in our first Instance Contest… Robbie Warnock, who wrote an amazing essay on WOW and gaming in general. His essay was titled, A Personal Narrative Concerning the Positive Qualities of World of Warcraft Or Daddy Needs a Z-Board! Kudos to you Robbie and the kick-ass essay, your ZBoard prize package will be shortly on the way. Finally we get some info about an upcoming documentary about WOW. By now most WOW fans have heard about the planned World of Warcraft movie, but a small independent film company is preparing to go all Michael Moore on us by filming a WOW documentary.

The Dead Workers Party, an independent film company from Huntsville, AL, is planning a feature length documentary on everyone’s favourite Blizzard game focusing on the personal stories of gamers and how WoW has affected their lives. The filmmakers are currently seeking WOW players, within reasonable driving range of their home base, for interviews both in-game and in person, as well as a interested guild for a special feature. The WOW-cumentary will also be on hand at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, GA from Sept. 1-4th Anyone interested in being a part of the movie should visit the Official Site.

2. Rumors & Scuttlebutt: FUNKTASTIQ an Orc/Hunter on Illidan sends us an interesting tidbit asking what we would think about Blizzard implementing the Auction House into their website. In my opinion it would be great being able to check your Auctions and what the current market is without fully logging into WOW. Carl from Somerset, England sends us an AMAZING idea that Blizzard should really think about this. Check out his thoughts below…

Just a thought, it would be great if Blizzard were to introduce a BattleGround for Guild vs Guild PVP in the expansion. This would be great, especially for those who roleplay a bit and have been offended by members of another Guild.

3. Legion of Cain: Want to join the Legion of Cain on Earthen Ring? LoC is now 100+ members and growing. The Legion can always use some freshly scarred Horde faces… JOIN THE LEGION OF CAIN!!! We also take some time to Pimp some Guilds that are scattered across the Lands of Azeroth.

4. Drop of the Week: FERINE, a 60th Hunter residing on the EU-Stormrage Realm. Sends us some great info concerning the Epic Staff we mentioned back on Show 20. Well, Atiesh the Greatstaff of the Guardian was the Staff in question. It also comes in 4 different flavors, each for a different class; Warlock, Druid, Mage and Priest. Deathsap has also asked for some Mods/Tips for Rogues from the Instance Community. Please send those tips into us or post them on The Instance Forums. We had a call about Fishing and watching movies last week. Well STIMMER, a 60th Troll/Rogue on the Arthas Realm sends us a great Mod for making movie watching and fishing better. It is called FishPing, and what it does is everytime your bobber catches a fish, it plays a PING! There are like 5 sound levels, ranging from Soft, to Super Loud. Now you can watch your Thundercats Episodes and fish till Mumra comes home. BISHOP sent us this freaking kick-ass Mod for combat. It is called Critman, and it basically uses the old Batman TV sounds and BLAM Animations when you land criticals. Useless but damn hilarious none-the-less. As with all the Mods that we feature, they can be downloaded from ui.worldofwar.net, wowinterface.com, and/or curse-gaming.com. Finally we get a creepy update about Goldshire again. This time is come from SHENCES, a Gnome on the Khaz Modan Server. What he has come across ups the SHIVER-LEVEL of Goldshire to a new level. Check out what he found…

I just wanted to let you know that I found something about the creepy children of Goldshire. Go to the haunted house just north of the inn, where a ladies husband was murdered and the children originated from. Sometimes the corpse is in the bedroom, right. On every friday the 13th his ghost is also there, but you need the highest Warlock buff “Detect Invisibility” to see him (Hunter Aspect won’tt work either).

It is the same like these ghosts in the house in Duskwood south from Raven Hill. Just go in and do some kind of AOE (or have the Warlock buff to see them). The ghost in Goldshire has a quest and a note for you, containing details that only he and his murderer can know.

Yes, it was Mrs. Cat Lady. Show her the note and inform the sheriff in Goldshire. (No hint that you`ll have to go to the sheriff, I was looking for hours for the next step.) after that, go back to the ghost and he will give you a map with a riddle where you can find near the house a chest. Hope you find this interesting.

5. Town Cryer: We want to thank all the WOW fans for the CRAZY influx on emails we are receiving. Got some Guild/Realm info? Have a questions/info/tips for us then send them in by emailing at… theinstance@gmail.com

Additional show content provided by The Instance Community, Shawn Basic, Randydeluxe, Dangfraggit, and Lorim. For the Horde all, for the freaking Horde!!!

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myextralife August 11th, 2006

I just got back from a little vacation, and Andrew has been busy as a bee. But we will have a new show out and done before the weekend is out. Thanks for hanging in there!

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