Soft Open

Hello - just cleaning out the cobwebs.

I've changed the look of the blog but not married to it. It shall likely change again.

I've left Jim Surge, Melissa Muromets, and Pete Peters as authors here at UWoW, but I feel as their courseload at university and other real-life responsibilities increase that we shall see very little of them in the coming weeks and months. They'll officially be considered "contributors at-large" for our purposes. I have known Jim for a while, both online and 3D, and would like to thank him for his thoughtful work here and I hope I can continue on with something close to the brand of honest critique that has been a hallmark of UWoW since the start.

I'm not sold on the idea of solely reviewing WoW podcasts - there are some great casts for other games as well. Jim made a halfhearted attempt at starting to listen to other shows on a regular basis like STO and Aion, but his interest didn't last long. I'll always be on the lookout for something good despite the game, and maybe even despite the genre.

For WoW, I'd like to at least be giving regular shouts to the shows that go above and beyond the typical here's what I did last week format, and of course mark significant anniversaries and the like.

But my vision for the blog is more to mine the content of some of these casts and drill down a little deeper and in more depth about the current issues of the day. The flexibility of a blog lends itself to such deeper considerations and I do hope readers will help contribute and help set the agenda.

I'm not a WoW-robot, as wasting half of 2010 on a bunch of alts I deleted before hitting lvl 30 should back up. I'm a fairly large baseball (Boston Red Sox) and proper football fan (Arsenal). I am also a huge fan of the Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic, I go to games and concerts, and these sorts of things are going to creep into the blog from time to time. Sorry, it's just me!

In terms of World of Warcraft, I am a complete endgame noob. I'm on Twisting Nether-US which is RPPVP, and I've leveled a blood elf priest to 80 last fall/winter, going shadow, and then for most of 2010 I've just been messing with alts of both factions until I started seriously working on a feral druid, now level 41, loving cat form.

Priest: Weledis (Herbalism 450 Tailoring 300)

Druid: Chuon (leveling with Herbalism / Skinning)

Poor Wel hasn't been dusted off since I got him a Brewfest stein back in July! I do also have one other "regular" toon, a level one bank alt blood elf huntress who operates out of Silvermoon, that I started when I started leveling Chuon.

I have a lot of rep grinding ahead for both of these characters. I still also have never run any level 80 dungeons or heroics, and am worried about ever getting there since I don't expect to have Chuon to 80 until sometime this fall, probably close to Cataclysm's release. We shall see. If anyone's on Twisting Nether and wants to help out, I'm all for it!

All for now, just wanted to say hey. So, hey.

And So On...

I've got brew a'brewin'. In the meantime, enjoy this:

Odd Thought

So this article about the New York Yankees in the New York Daily News sparked an odd thought.

A comment from a reader called "eli grossman" puts forward a theory that the manager of the New York Yankees might have a hard time lying to the media because he is a good Christian. I assume from the context of the previous comments and from the article itself that Mr. grossman is offering an explanation as to why the Yankees' manager sometimes seems tongue-tied, as if he's trying to figure out how to speak gibberish without technically lying.

I'm sure football fans understand what I'm getting at from having watched countless managers "engage" in vacant conversation in the post-match interview.

Another Snow

Snow on the way again.

I have some travel coming up next week to the great state of Alabama. Just a one-nighter.

Did a realm transfer of my lvl 70 paladin from Anvilmar-US (PVE) to Twisting Nether-US (RPPVP) to bring a couple thousand gold over to my little hunter/rogue dual box team. But the funny thing is I actually dusted the guy off and did a level in Northrend and now might just run him through to 80 first before going back to the lowbies.

More and more have been listening to non-WoW MMO-related podcasts.

Haven't been on STO all week. Not missing it greatly. Still want to do the Lieutenant Commander levels this weekend though.

Snowdate: This Is Getting Old

Yet more snow last night and today here in New Jersey.

Not nearly as exciting as Snowpocalypse 2010 which downed power lines and closed schools for several days, but it'll do nicely to turn otherwise rational people into raving lunatic idiots on the roadways.

Or maybe raving lunatic isn't correct. But the sort of mentally ill person that sees a snowflake in the air and assumes that the ground is a)snow covered b)ice covered or c)generally unsafe and therefore drives their vehicle at absurdly slow speeds, mashing down on the breaks at irregular intervals for no reason at all.

If these maggots did something crazy called "using their eyes" they would see that there is absolutely no need for the extra caution because a)there's no snow covering the roads b)there's no ice sneaking around there either, especially after the warm temps this weekend, and c)it only becomes unsafe when you're going super slow and stomping on your breaks for no reason causing people to crash into you from behind.

There's no need for it! So stop.

Anyway, have hardly played WoW in about two weeks. I was all set to do the love is in the air events on my main toon and even read a little about the changes this year, but I just couldn't go back for more than one day of that garbage. My latest plan is to go back and get my priest who is now 80 through the quest chain to pick either Oracles or Frenzyheart. He's still working on Sons of Hodir too so that will be a nice little moneymaker for the time being.

Still have a pally sitting at 70 (and he's so old his main weapon is still the Hammer of Destiny).

Been doing a little dual-boxing on Twisting Nether-US but are only at level 15 on a hunter/rogue combo.

Mainly playing STO (got James Herbert Surge up to Lieutenant Commander and tried a Klingon for PvP - love the starting ship) and NHL10 on PS3 these days, with a dose of my Out of the Park Baseball online league and Total Extreme Wrestling 2010 thrown in for good measure.

TONS of podcasts were in the chamber today, so much so I couldn't sync before my frustrating car ride to campus.

Snowpocalypse 2010!

Just a quick note - the NJ area has been bashed with snow for the last few days, and the ancient power lines in Princeton just aren't what they used to be. Power has finally come back on, so expect updates to resume.

Cheers.

Stardate: You're Corny

I've been playing STO quite a bit over the last week. After being in the closed beta, the open beta, and the headstart you'd think I'd have had enough already. But I haven't. I sort of like it. It's providing a great change of pace for me from my WoW playing.

I've not been very adventerous thus far in terms of my toon. My first character is a human Starfleet officer called James Herbert Surge and he is the commanding officer of the New Jersey. I just got him promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander this weekend during the "Winter Powerhouse" that "paralyzed the east coast" on Friday and Saturday. This week, after playing around a bit with Surge's new cruiser, I'll finally roll up a Klingon and some other kind of Starfleet alien race.

It's not mindblowing. But it's pretty solid. A comment in Zone chat yesterday pretty much summed up my attitude: "it'll do until TOR is ready."

A couple of typical random WoW-related posts that are always popping up at the launch of MMOs these days made me chuckle for some reason:

"NEED A RUN THROUGH STOCKS - PAYING 5G!"

"Need heals and 3 dps for ICC25 then gtg"

Ho-hum. Certainly not as chuckle-inducing in print as they were "in the moment."

Been listening to a bunch of new and non-WoW related podcasts, but some of the classics as well. Should be posting our updated list later today.

To Meekly Go

I'm really bummed that my Asus "Republic of Gaming" laptop supposedly built for gaming can't handle Star Trek: Online without going through waves of lag. Even adjusting the -fps setting to 50 didn't help. To be fair, the laptop is now almost a year old, and I guess it serves me right for waiting so long to get a new desktop rig (I can dual box WoW on the laptop with no lag, but can't even run STO for longer than 5 minutes before it all goes to hell - doesn't make sense I tells ya!).

Anyway, interestingly enough last night I did some poking around the iTunes store to look for other MMO-related podcasts for the games I've dabbled (or continue to dabble) in.

Star Trek Online
I was happy to see that Aprillian from Ctrl Alt WoW has a brand new STO-themed show that has recently released its first episode. Ctrl Alt Trek provided a pretty decent overview of the beta and an interesting perspective if you're a Trek fan but on the fence about playing the MMO.

I also downloaded but haven't listened to STOked: The Ultimate Star Trek Online Podcast by the guys from Jupiter Broadcasting.

Champions Online
There were a couple, but the one that still looks like it is active is Podcast of Champions, which just released its last show on 1/25/10. Listened to the first 20 minutes, fairly amusing discussion of the box art included in that. Some large doses of yucking present. Also some fretting about the STO release and possible impact on support & development of CO.

Aion
Disappointing, really. None of the several Aion podcasts listed have been updated since we hit calendar year 2010. I picked up the Aion Fancast (12/4/09), Aion's Wrath (10/23/09), and Black Wings of Atreia (8/21/09) just to hear some examples.

Warhammer
Not much happening here either. Downloaded the Warhammer Alliance Podcast to hear their end-of-year special episode, but there hasn't been a new episode since.

Lord of the Rings Online
Some activity here - A Casual Stroll to Mordor and LOTRO Reporter both had news episodes out within the last week, while LOTROCast's last show was #20 back on 12/23/09.

Star Wars: The Old Republic
Apparently there's more going on here right now for a game that's not even released then there is for Aion. I picked up TOROcast #41 (!) from 1/31/10 and Mos Eisley Radio but have yet to listen.



If there are any others you regularly listen to, please let me know. I'll try to give these guys a listen this week and post some initial reactions.

KYS (nws)

We'd like to take this time to salute our pal thehatfield, who is all proud of himself for having his tweet appear in the crawl at the bottom of the screen on AOTS yesterday. He was so geeked up about the experience that he actually had to delete a tweet which said he was pleased with "@atos" for recognizing his tweet about Bill Hicks being "favorite stand-up commedian."

He didn't mention that there were at least 5 other Bill Hicks marks on that crawl, and maybe even as many as 6-10 more. (Only one or two brave souls mentioned Norm MacDonald or Mitch Hedberg.) Everyone seemed obsessed with Gabriel Iglesias or somesuch. He also didn't mention that he's now being followed by about 30 more no doubt insane basement-dwellers taking the time to follow people mentioned on Attack of the Show.

As a viewer I felt embarrassed for all of the Dimitri Martin mentions, but I suppose the emo crowd deserves to be represented as well.

In honor of his horrible achievement, I'm going to attempt to embed this Bill Hicks comedy segment on marketing, since Hat's soulless ass works in publishing devising ways to con people out of money.

TEW 2010 Released Today

This has nothing to do with WoW, but the latest edition of the highly addictive professional wrestling booking simulator called Total Extreme Wrestling 2010 will be released at some point today by Grey Dog Software.

Needless to say, I'm quite excited! As a long-time supporter of the series, and having played the free Demo that was available this week, I'm chomping at the bit to get deeper into the new version past the one month you get in the Demo.

If you've never heard about the game before, it has roots dating back to 1995's Extreme Warfare and it has constantly been evolving ever since.

This isn't a fighting game in the Fighter Hayabusa vs. King Slender mold. At the beginning of the game you become the Head Booker of a promotion (or you can choose to start unemployed), and you try to lead that promotion to be the number one wrestling organization in the world. There is a fantastic fictional database included with the game called the CornellVerse (C-Verse, CVerse) and features promotions and workers from around the globe.

It can be a little daunting at first entering the default data for the first time, just like anything else unknown. And if you want to make an informed decision about which fed to start with it's probably going to take some quality time to read each of the worker and fed bios, not to mention checking the skillset for the workers to know their individual strengths and weaknesses. So if you can't read, or are unwilling to, this may not be the sim for you.

But that said, there's always a workaround. If playing with fictional characters isn't your thing you can check out the mods forum on the Grey Dog site. The TEW community is quite vibrant and active, and real world mods are often released by forum members relatively quickly after the new version of the game is released.

Of course, you don't have to take over a promotion right away. As mentioned above you can start unemployed and watch the game world evolve before entering. If you do go that route you likely won't be able to be hired by the biggest, most powerful feds, but it does give you a nice chance to simply sit back and see exactly how the AI books, and which workers they decide to push, sign, or release.

One of the best things about the game is that it's highly customizable. And even moreso in TEW2010. You can do everything you can possibly think of from creating your own database (which would give your universe only the feds and workers that you specify) to simply creating one new wrestler to drop down in the middle of the C-Verse to see how he/she fares. And everything in between. From storylines, to angles, to titles, everything is under your domain and can be edited. Not to mention all of the new in-game options available in 2010 which you can read about on their site.

FYI, in addition to other games, they have a very solid MMA simulator called WMMA2 which you can see also see on the main Grey Dog site.

Been a Good Week for You?

Like most holiday-shortened weeks, the arrival of Friday always seems pleasantly early. The podcasters seem to have finally soldiered on through the bleak "dead period" after the Christmas holidays and new year and new episodes are once again dropping faster than Sartharion with no drakes.

Warcraft Radio is sadly winding to a close. Previously I posted a link to The Cynical Brit, which will be Totalbiscuit's new hideout. Looks like Blue Plz!, Gaming Express, and Gaming the System are the first three shows to be officially announced as part of TCB's arsenal of caustic mayhem.

A ton of shows will be moving over to OMFG who are still in the process of feeling things out, regrouping, and moving forward. A preliminary list of shows from their forums includes: Council of Six, Essence of RP, MaxSpeed, The Donut Shop, Fragged Up, PUG, Tales From Your Mom's Basement, and The Combobulater.

Looks like two of our favorite shows - Octale & Hordak vs. the World, and Casually Hardcore - will be joining forces in the near future over at Verses The World (VTW), which is presently in beta. To keep up with the Casually Hardcore gang right now you can do so over at Alpha Geek Radio.

As of right now The Emperor's Court is listed both on the VTW beta site and on the OMFG forums, so maybe there's a bidding war going on behind the scenes. :)

Have some thoughts brewing on recent shows.

Random: Despite the endless shtick from John Jakobson I'm pleased Warcraft Outsiders is back for some reason.

Hope you had a good week.

Thank you.

So, is it Still Called the WoW Insider Show or What?

After travel last week and yesterday's holiday to honor the memory and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., we're back in full effect. Or (as usual it seems), at least I am!

A couple of surprising things struck me as I listened to new episodes of the WoW.com show.

First, I actually miss Mike Schramm. There, I typed it. While we sometimes had fun at Mike's expense, you know, sometimes kidded him about certain oft-repeated verbal habits, his ability to keep the show focused and moving forward I think far exceeds that of new host Michael Sacco.

The new show may still be in the process of feeling itself out, but it's frighteningly polite and painful to listen to as they do this on-air. As soon as two people start to speak at once everyone stops speaking, and then each person tells the other person to go ahead and speak. Then no one speaks for a few seconds before suddenly they both start speaking at the same time again. Then they laugh and each one again tells the other one to go ahead... you get the idea.

A surefire bright spot on the new WoW.com show is the emergence of Matthew Rossi. While Rossi was featured from time to time on the Schramm/Turpster version, he's been given a lot longer leash by Sacco and it has been great. He's been awfully funny thus far, even in the episode where he had a massive headache.

Schramm must have committed the ultimate sin - criticizing Blizzard or AOL or somesuch - for him to have been dumped so quickly. Obviously it wasn't planned because on the first Sacco/Rossi show Sacco said everything was thrown together at the last second because of the circumstances. No matter what you might feel about them personally I think I can speak for everyone when I say that Schramm and Turpster at least deserved time to put together a proper final show due to their dedicated service.

What I don't understand is WoW.com wanting to seek more "outside opinions" to add to their podcast. When I go to WoW.com I want the opinion of WoW.com. It is a brand that I can trust for at least the Blizzard side of every World of Warcraft issue. And if perchance they stray from the company line, I want to wake up the next morning to read a retraction or some other prompt apology that insults my intelligence.

If I want the opinion of other places, I'll go elsewhere. What happened on the blog this week? What were people talking about? That's what I want to hear, especially because (like many folks I know) I do not always read each post on the blog every week.

If they want to have guests like "nerdcore" rapper Fatty on the show I believe they should do it in a brief section dedicated to guests. Having random people of unknown WoW ability chiming in all show and having to crowbar-in the reason why the person is even there runs exactly contrary to the reason I listen to that particular podcast in the first place.

In all, nice to hear more Matthew Rossi. And would prefer a more Schramm-like Sacco.

Up And At Um

We're getting into the groove again this week, or at least I am! I'll be taking a quick two-night trip to Detroit but there'll be plenty of down time at the airports to listen to podcasts - especially if it continues to snow out in Michigan!

Excited to see exactly what folks are up to these days.

The first ever UWoW meetup was a rousing success! No one showed up so it wasn't awkward at all. Melissa, Pete and I discussed many things like events from world history, current events, the success of the movie Avatar, Howard Stern, the ascension of China, English football, the NFL playoffs, stuffy Princeton people, townies, Carl Jung's book "Aion" and the Aion MMO, Walt Whitman, and farts. The drink specials there were fantastic - $2 for 20-ounce Miller Lites was my poison of choice. I could drink a bucket of that stuff and still be fine for the walk home.

Luckily it's a short walk.

Follow Friday

We do like to maintain a degree of our underground identity here at the blog. Last year though, none of us could really tell you what that meant because it would have exposed us as a parody site.

This site is meant to be for people that somehow stumble on it. We're not serious about anything. We have no official partnerships with other blogs or podcasts or companies and that's the way things are going to stay. We don't participate in bullshit like Azeroth United to raise our profile and prove to the world how nice and what good people we are. No gimmicky contests allowed to bring about an influx of leeches, users, and other general lazy-eyed scumbags. No dumbing down our writing or writing about where our favorite pond is in World of Warcraft to take screenshots. If you're a fan of the blog, you're in on the joke.

Sure, we do Tweet about our posts from time to time, and yes, in rare instances they are re-tweeted! I have even been known to secretly submit links to this blog to such places as WoW.com, or sites like Blog Azeroth, and yes we'd still like to get a spoof show going possibly with Tristan of The Elitists, but those reach-outs are usually few and far between. The laughs we get writing faux-intellectually about World of Warcraft is all the compensation we'll ever need!

But today is Follow Friday. There are two sites I'd like to recommend:

The Big Lead
If you haven't already heard of The Big Lead, it is a very cool, unbeholden US-based sports site. Has nothing to do with World of Warcraft. You get honest takes with no agenda other than the writer's personal bias, which is what we love. Now, like us, you'll probably disagree when they try to compare Urban Meyer's 48-hour flip flop over health reasons to Brett Favre's 4-year, 8-month and ongoing childish will-he-or-won't he retire gimmick that he tried to use to get himself traded to a better team, but there's always something interesting to talk about and consider there.

For The Lore
Nice clean site. Not just WoW-centric, not just MMO-centric. Story-driven games. I am the target audience and I like it!

What Makes A Medium Server Medium?

This seems to be the £628,339.69 question.

Between myself and our friend thehatfield, we've asked just about everyone we could think of. From Starman of World of Warcast to The Turpster of various projects to Adam Holisky of WoW.com to all of our Twitter followers. And we were either ignored or no one knows.

This information may well be readily available, but certainly not to me. I do not have the constitution at the moment to actually read through sites like Warcraft Realms or troll through endless pages of realm forums to see if someone, somewhere offers an explanation.

But the question is interesting when you consider the state of the economy on the two servers I'm most active on - Anvilmar-US (PVE) and Twisting Nether-US (RPPVP) - both "Medium" servers.

One thing we can actually track through auction scanners is Auction House activity. If there is a large discrepancy in total number of auctions, does that say anything about the server's overall population?

This morning I was startled to notice that there was a discrepancy of 11,236 total auctions between Twisting Nether (26,003) and Anvilmar (14,767) - nearly double the amount for a realm listed as the same size!

We know that we can't completely trust the population numbers or activity ratios of Warcraft Realms. But maybe it gives us a little background info and a range to think about.

June 2006 is listed as the online date for Anvilmar, while Twisting Nether shows as September of 2005 so we don't have a case here where the server with the higher AH activity is new with lots of toons still grinding away and flooding the Auction House with lots of everything from every level.

If you believe it, Warcraft Realms says that Anvilmar actually has more total characters than Twisting Nether, 13,769 to 10,823.

So what does this all mean? What actually is a medium server? Could Twisting Nether really be out-auctioning Anvilmar nearly 2:1 with about 3,000 less toons? How does a discrepancy like that occur?

Preview TCB!

Well now we know what the next step is for Totalbiscuit, The Cynical Brit!

This is just a preview of what's to come and according to TB's twitter, and some sections remain unfinished. But it is a cool first look at the new digs. Nice clear format. Should be sweet once it's up and rolling full force.

UWoW Meet-Up: Princeton, NJ, This Friday!

A couple of people asked me about this last winter when we were first getting started, so now nearly a year later and with absolutely no interest we thought this would be a great time to hold our first ever UWoW meetup at the Ivy Inn in Princeton, NJ this Friday, January 8!

The Ivy Inn is an outstanding townie dive bar known for cheap drinks and they don't serve food, so come thirsty! They do, of course, allow you to bring in food from the outside and enjoy it at your leisure. The world famous Hoagie Haven, along with favorite local greasepit George's are within walking distance. And if that isn't your speed you could get Chinese at Ivy Garden or sushi at Tomo Sushi or Indian at Kaluri Corner which are all quite close-by.

Melissa and I should be there, Pete is still unconfirmed. If you feel like chatting WoW, or about WoW podcasts, or about ideas for future WoW-related projects, come have a frosty beverage or two. For this outing you must be 21-years old to attend with valid proof of age. They are supremely strict about not serving minors at the Ivy, it just doesn't happen there.

Farewell WoW Radio

It shouldn't be news by now that Totalbiscuit has decided to pull the plug on WoW Radio. In his heartfelt This is it posting on their main site, TB did have this to offer:

I can’t speak for the other staff, who will tell you of their own plans on their shows and forums, but I can speak for myself and what I intend to do in future. I have a new site which will be ready to launch very soon, which I will be continuing to broadcast Blue Plz!, Gaming the System and a brand new, daily gaming news show entitled Gaming Express. This site will feature it’s own forums, blog comment system and substantially more regular content than you’re used to seeing from me. Without the responsibility of managing a large, volunteer organisation, I expect to be able to focus my efforts on what I’ve always loved, producing top-quality audio content for you. A link to this site will be provided once it has been launched.

They also report that The Donut Shop with The Donut Boys, MaxSpeed with Speedyf40, Maxmaps, and Kae, Essence of RP with Almighty Farseer and Kexman, and But Wait! There’s Lore! with Shinoda and Snapplemonkey will remain producing new shows at a new site TBA.

I'll keep up with this and report any news I hear.

I do understand that this is hardly the end. Neigh, a new dawn approaches! But I would like to use this space to say that this blog owes a great deal to WoW Radio, and especially to Totalbiscuit, for their long-standing and enthusiastic support. Thank you WoW Radio for your uncompromising attitudes, for all the laughs, for teaching me so much about this game and industry that we all love. In a time when so many people are consumed with spreading bullshit to the far reaches of the globe you were a beacon of hope to critical thinkers everywhere. We still get hundreds of views per week here, and it sure isn't the quality or frequency of the content over the last two months. That is a testament to the enduring power of WoW Radio.

New Year, New You?

I'm very keen to give the new WoW Insider Show a listen since the abrupt departures of Mike Schramm and The Turpster from the podcast. Like most regular listeners, we were completely taken by surprise by the news and interested to see if the remaining staff takes the show in a new direction.

A long while ago I made the comment that the WoW Insider Show was a confused show. Back then you'd have these intricate breakdowns on hunter mechanics by Big Red Kitty followed by 10 minutes of crying about how Noblegarden wasn't fair. It was weird. And of course, you had the random crapshoot of what would be the top article on the WoW.com blog over the last week. God forbid you'd be stuck listening when it was patch week. Or patch notes hitting the PTR. Or patch anything.

But ever since Pete pointed out that Mike tends to slightly rephrase questions he's just asked as if the questioned person can't understand the first time (ie. in quick succession: "What have you been up to lately in the World of Warcraft? Have you been up to anything good in World of Warcraft lately?") I've sort of had a soft spot for Schramm-wow.

As far as this blog, Pete, Melissa and I are still getting our own house back in order as you've no doubt noticed from the type of infrequent, non-themed posts going up. I have to admit its been pretty tough trying to get back into the regular groove of listening to these shows, especially since the three of us are each listening to more podcasts on our individual lists since the departures of Fred and Toothy. Actually that's untrue. It's been hard to bring myself to write about many of them. It almost feels like wasted words.

Pete has expressed on multiple occasions that he was very pleased with some of the changes made by the Casually Hardcore crew. He basically is the target audience for that show (many could argue, rightly, that I am too) and really likes the job they are doing.

Melissa has been doing some scouting of up-and-coming or new shows, while I've been clearing out the old, re-compiling our master list, updating all of our internal subscriptions, doing outreach to other blogs and podcasters, etc..