January 24, 2011

Playing the AH: The Economic Game in WoW

The main game I play in WoW isn't PvE, or PvP, or lore, or exploration, it's economic. I play the Auction House. I buy things at low prices, and sell them higher. I stockpile goods when I think the price...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:11 PM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2011

Zen and the Art of Looking For Dungeon

I am remembering now that I used to really enjoy PvP in World of Warcraft. Not necessarily because I'm good at it - I'm not, particularly - but because it works well with my approach to most things. That is,...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2011

Adventures in WoW

I've been back playing WoW since about 2 months before Cataclysm was released. My plan was to resubscribe, poke at a few bits and pieces of the game, get in a good wedge of money before the expansion, and generally...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2010

Planning for Cataclysm

At present, I am not playing any MMOs. This is partly because I want to concentrate on other things over the summer months, and partly because, well, right now, none of them are grabbing me. I will, however, be going...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:43 PM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2009

In Defense of Azeroth

Occasional guest writer davew was last seen here writing the guide to WoW Level 80 Endgame Play. Recent discussions about EQ2 and Darkfall, though, have brought him out of the woodwork to write about World of Warcraft again. So, reasons...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 9:44 AM | Comments (0)

August 14, 2009

WoW: Level 80 Endgame Play

It gives me great pleasure to present davew's Guide to Life At Level 80 in World of Warcraft. I reckon it's one of the best WoW articles I've seen on the web, let alone published here, and I'm sure you'll...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2009

WoW Economics, WoTLK Edition

As noted in the previous post, I'm spending a lot of time playing with the Auction House in WoW. The Auctioneer addon makes it very easy to do so; it would otherwise be a nightmare of data management - although...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:42 PM | Comments (0)

WoW Alts

Throughout my MMO career, I've had alts. I've never been able to create just one character and go with that, even though I've always had very clear main characters. In WoW, I've only recently realised how much of a boost...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)

February 26, 2009

Blizzard Sources

Blizzard have posted a teaser video of Ulduar, the new raid dungeon that's coming in the next patch. I watched it today, and had to stop and boggle a bit at times, because so many of the visuals are familiar....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 2:02 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2009

Wrath of the Lich King 14-Day Trial

So Wrath of the Lich King, the World of Warcraft expansion, has a 14-day trial, wherein you can temporarily activate an old account for 14 days. It has the side-effect that your account gets upgraded to the new expansion, so...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 4:24 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2008

WoW: Am I still casual?

I'm starting to wonder if I can call myself a casual player in World of Warcraft any more. After all, Wormson traded in his last green item on Saturday evening for an epic belt, and is now clad entirely in...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:44 PM | Comments (1)

April 3, 2008

WoW: Sunwell Isle and the Power to Change

The new Sunwell Isle daily quests have a compelling aspect like none I've seen in an MMO before. I'm usually ambivalent about dailies in World of Warcraft. On the one hand, they allow me to do something productive in a...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 9:44 AM | Comments (1)

March 31, 2008

First Time in Karazhan

I've never done much raiding before - a few times into Zul'Gurub, back in the pre-TBC days. Saturday evening last, though, the raid group my guild works with were arranging runs into the new, no-attunement Karazhan. We had enough people...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 9:31 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2008

WoW Patch 2.4

Patch 2.4 hit the European servers of World of Warcraft on Wednesday, and was the smoothest patch yet - things were up and running well by the time people were coming home from work. It chewed up a lot of...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2008

WoW: Old Hillsbrad FTW

On Saturday last, Nina and I sat down and did 12 straight hours of World of Warcraft, playing through the entire attunement process for Karazhan. I didn't actually attune, since I've no interest in the raid, but the quests and...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:50 AM | Comments (2)

February 4, 2008

Idiot Quotient in WoW

So WoW is going well, I'm acquiring the PvP epics, doing the daily quests for cash, it's not a must-log-in, but a decent pastime, and I like having a lot of other people I know around. However, there's a much...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 7:46 AM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2008

More Lich King Beta Phishing

Some time ago, I published an article here about a World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Beta phishing scam. Yesterday, a comment came in on that article which read: The REAL beta of Wrath of the Lich King...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:19 AM | Comments (1)

January 21, 2008

World of Warcraft: Second First Impressions

I'm back in WoW, for a short while, mainly because a good few of my guildmates there are trying this PvP thing, and I like PvP. My first two impressions were, "Woah, smooth!", and "Woah, lag!"...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)

January 11, 2008

WoW: 10 Days of PvP

So there's this Scroll of Resurrection deal for WoW, whereby someone can give you 10 free days on your existing lapsed account. Coincidentally, this is exactly the gap in time between the date when my EVE account renews and the...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 9:31 AM | Comments (0)

November 8, 2007

WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Preview

There's an article on 1up about the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft. I've set this expansion as the thing that will get me back into WoW, at least briefly, and one of the points in...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:46 PM | Comments (1)

October 3, 2007

Wrath of the Lich King Beta Phishing

There is a phishing scam being sent out with a hook of beta participation in World of Warcraft's next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 6:12 PM | Comments (13)

September 16, 2007

Shaking the WoW Addiction

While I have the remnants of a three-month subscription winding down, I haven't logged in to WoW in over a month. Most of my MMO time is going into EVE Online, and a bit into LotRO, neither of which seem...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 6:35 PM | Comments (1)

August 4, 2007

World of Warcraft Second Expansion

So, Blizzard have announced the second expansion for World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King. It's pretty much as expected, really....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

August 1, 2007

World of Warcraft in Russian?

From the number of Russian speakers Blizzard want to employ, I'm wondering if there'll be a localised Russian release of World of Warcraft sometime soon. A fair number of Russians already play WoW on the European servers....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:39 PM | Comments (0)

May 31, 2007

WoW 2.1: Casuals v Raiders

There's a lot of discussion going on on Tobolds MMORPG Blog about the changes the 2.1 patch - and The Burning Crusade expansion in general - made to the end-game....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:52 PM | Comments (2)

April 18, 2007

WoW, Negative Blogging, and Creativity

A few people have remarked recently on the overall negative attitude on blogs and message boards about World of Warcraft, and particularly concerning the Burning Crusade expansion. I think I've - anecdotally - identified a factor in this....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2007

Crafting in World of Warcraft

There's a new, and absolutely excellent crafting site for World of Warcraft: Crafter's Tome. It has forums, recipe lists, a very good blog, and a number of guides. For some reason, WoW crafting has never had the level of attention...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:35 PM | Comments (1)

March 7, 2007

How to Roleplay in World of Warcraft

There's a growing perception that actual roleplaying is difficult, perhaps impossible, in MMOs. I play World of Warcraft on an RP server, Argent Dawn in Europe, and I'm here to tell you that it's entirely possible. I won't claim to...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:10 PM | Comments (6)

January 26, 2007

Raider Resentment in TBC

Terra Nova have an excellent article up for discussion, concerning The Burning Crusade. There's one quote in particular in it that really does make me boggle, though....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2007

Jeff Kaplan on Player Housing

MTV's news site has an interview with Jeff Kaplan, the lead game designer for World of Warcraft, at the launch of The Burning Crusade. He commented on player housing in the game, among other topics....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:03 PM | Comments (2)

January 16, 2007

The Burning Crusade: The Maths

World of Warcraft's first expansion, The Burning Crusade, was released this morning. I've got a copy now, as has nearly everyone in my guild. An informal survey taken on WorldOfWar.net said that 88% of players were intending to buy the...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 4:26 PM | Comments (0)

January 3, 2007

WoW Honor and PvP

Player vs. player has been an important part of MMORPGs for almost as long as they've been in existence. There are some games - Dark Age of Camelot, for instance, where the PvP content largely is the endgame. World of...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:46 PM | Comments (2)

December 6, 2006

WoW: Dishonorable Kills Going Away

For some time, there's been a mechanism in World of Warcraft called "dishonorable kills" (or dishonourable kills, except that all the spelling in WoW remains American, even in Europe). What this used to do was make it not just a...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:22 PM | Comments (1)

November 30, 2006

WoW Statistics to Lifetime

Blizzard recently put up a page detailing the statistics of the World of Warcraft servers - items looted and created, most dangerous creatures, and so on. There's some fascinating analysis on Van Hemlock about these stats, culminating in the average...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 4:45 PM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2006

Raiding In WoW

I've been watching the progress of guilds, communities, and end-game content on World of Warcraft's European Argent Dawn RP server - directly on the Horde side, and indirectly on the Alliance side. And at this stage, what I'm seeing, particularly...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:18 AM | Comments (1)

September 10, 2006

Reasons for WoW's success

Terra Nova has an article up discussing the opinions of some of the designers on why World of Warcraft has been such a success....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 3:10 PM | Comments (1)

August 25, 2006

Gold Farming Bots on WoW

I've heard of bots - script controlled characters, where the actual player isn't present - on other games, but hadn't seen them in World of Warcraft until recently. Of late, however, even on Argent Dawn, there's been a plague of...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 7:38 AM | Comments (8)

August 23, 2006

Money from Crafting in WoW & EQ

Everquest's publishers, Sony Online Entertainment, released a "progression server" last year - essentially, one which would start out with the basic version of Everquest, and add expansaions as particular encounters "unlocked" them - something similar to the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 2:20 PM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2006

WoW Battlegroups

I apologise to my non-MMO-playing readership for the rather technical nature of this post. The battlegroups are up on Blizzard's European World of Warcraft site, and I really have to ask - whose bright idea was it to group the...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

August 13, 2006

The Burning Crusade

The Burning Crusade has been previewed by Gamespy. I have to say that the previews and advance news of this expansion are really making me enthused about World of Warcraft again in a way I haven't been in a while....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

August 2, 2006

World of Warcraft Player Housing

Player (or at least guild) housing has been a requested feature for WoW since before its release, but there's no sign of it yet. Why? Here are my guesses.
Posted by Drew Shiel at 5:43 PM | Comments (3)

July 11, 2006

11 Ways to Profit With Auctions in WoW

Making money with auctions in World of Warcraft is not difficult. There are two keys: know the market, and be patient....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 10:47 AM | Comments (3)

May 23, 2006

World of Warcraft at E3 2006 - Movie

There's been surprisingly little discussion about the World of Warcraft live-action movie announced at E3. I think it could be really, really great. If it holds true to the normal routine for the film-of-the-game, though, it'll be foul beyond reckoning....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:30 PM

May 22, 2006

WoW Endgame Boost in 1.11

It looks as though the developers have been paying some attention to the World of Warcraft endgame - which, given the game has been out for over a year, is where most of the attention of the players lies. They...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:39 AM

May 12, 2006

Draenei, Draenai, Drenai, Deryni

There's clearly something hugely attractive about this particular name for a race. World of Warcraft have announced the new Alliance race will be the Draenei (who look far too cool for the Alliance, I have to say). David Gemmell wrote...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:51 AM | Comments (1)

April 4, 2006

FlagRSP: The Rulez

This previously appeared on another journal of mine, but I figure it's worthwhile reposting here. FlagRSP is an addon for World of Warcraft, which allows you to add a prose description for your character. Unfortunately, it sometimes gets used in...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:58 AM

February 21, 2006

Lessons from WoW

Here's a rather fascinating article on Less ons GMS can learn from WoW. I'm not sure I agree with all of them, but it's an interesting slant on things....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 10:45 AM | Comments (1)

February 9, 2006

Valentines in Azeroth

World of Warcraft's rumoured Valentine's Day Content sounds utterly bizarre - a cross between an American high school vote for Prom Queen and the plot of an 80s cartoon....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 10:53 AM

January 29, 2006

WoW Developer Interview

Jeff Kaplan, a WoW designer, interviewed in the New York Times (registration required), gives some details about future content: Naxxramas is going to be the most difficult thing in the game until the expansion pack comes out. It will be...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:14 AM

January 26, 2006

WoW Endgame Commentary

Further to my post of last week about the World of Warcraft Endgame, there's a huge thread on the US discussion boards about the whole concept, in which one of the company reps comments frequently. It's well worth reading....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)

January 18, 2006

WoW Endgame

I've been playing World of Warcraft for about six months now. My main character, the Forsaken warlock Wormson is level 52, and I have more alts than are good for me. I'm starting to reach the endgame now, and I'm seeing people who began at the same time as me do the same.
Posted by Drew Shiel at 5:50 PM

November 3, 2005

WoW Expansion - Predictions Examined

A while back, I made a few predictions as to what would be in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, now announced as The Burning Crusade. I suggested: Player housing, hero classes, new classes and races, vehicles and a new profession constructing them, mounted combat, new places, and an extra character dimension. I didn't do all that well, really.
Posted by Drew Shiel at 5:42 PM | Comments (2)

August 29, 2005

BlizzCon & Expansion

Game publishers Blizzard are holding a convention at the end of October. There's a lot of speculation about what will be announced there - thus far, they've been very good about keeping things quiet. I've got a list of things that might be in the WoW expansion, and I want to get them down here, and see in November how I'm doing.
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:53 PM

July 20, 2005

World of Warcraft

On further inspection, this appears to be a good game. I'm not prepared to say that it's a better game than Dark Age of Camelot, but World of Warcraft has different strengths. One of these is down to the server rather than the game itself; there's no RP server for DAoC in Europe, and there are two for WoW. All comments here apply to the low levels, of course - I've not been at it long enough to reach a higher level than 14.
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:32 PM

July 14, 2005

World of Warcraft - Initial Impression

I've been trying out World of Warcraft on a borrowed account. Obviously, reviewing an MMO after two days playing, no grouping, and one character is not going to work well, but I do want to get my initial impressions down. The first is that it just doesn't have the sheer stickiness, for me, of Dark Age of Camelot - such that last night, I decided that levelling the WoW character was too easy, and that I'd much rather go do something challenging in Dark Age.
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:14 PM | Comments (2)