Archive for June, 2009
The Casual Gaming Trend In World Of Warcraft And What It Means For The Future
Author: IcyStorm
Author: Patrick Smith
If you’ve been playing World of Warcraft at all consistently over the last two years, you’ve seen the way the game has been moving toward more casual play. By this, I mean that there are fun things to do at all levels, without the need to spend many hours or days to achieve anything. The idea behind this drift seems to be to attract and retain more casual players, people who can’t or won’t put in the amount of time and energy a hard-core player will. Considering how many people now play the game, this strategy has clearly worked to get people involved. But some people are wondering if having lots of casual players is good for the game itself, as well as for the hard-core players. Here’s a breakdown of the situation.
The Positive Side of the Casual Trend Probably the best thing about the more casual style of play is that it causes Blizzard to make sure to add lots of fun things to the game.. Changes like Achievements, lower level requirements for mounts, less XP to get to the higher level content, along with the large number of events held throughout the year all add a lot of depth and detail to the World of Warcraft universe. For hardcore players who spend large blocks of time repeatedly playing through the same area over and over trying to get a new epic shield, pair of spaulder, it keeps you from getting stuck in a rut and adds some depth to your gaming days.
The Negative Side of Casual Style Play The trend toward casual gaming has drawn away from resources Blizzard previously poured into raiding content and things for more devoted players. Surprisingly, the highest level raid for Level 80 players is significantly easier than the top raids for Level 70. Raid sizes are now 10 and 25 men as well. The top-end Players who reached Level 80 days after the expansion came out are left with PvP or Achievement grinding if they want something to do as they wait for the higher end raids that will eventually come to the game. What Casual Play Means for World of Warcraft
In the end, casual gamers coming to WoW is good for everyone. It brings in new revenue and as long as Blizzard maintains quality levels and puts the necessary resources they should into the game, they will be able to maintain a steady flow of new content for all level of players. It might seem like the faithful are getting shortchanged, but it is the price we have to pay to give the company the resources to develop new content in the future that might not otherwise get the go ahead.


Author: Greg Mee
Pain, agony, suffering… also known as “leveling in the World of Warcraft.”
Say what? Ok, to be fair, the first time, or even the first few times, leveling characters in WoW is a kick. Many of the quests are clever, fun, interesting, and have a good story behind them. Of course, some are little more than an excuse to kill off a bunch of Raptors, but others have a lot more detail, story, and humor.
Still, like any story told more than once, if you’ve done the quests several times they get old. If you’ve leveled many characters they might be really old. Trying different races doesn’t help, since they all do the same quests once they get into their teens. If you’ve leveled many characters you might even find it … painful. Doing it yet again becomes somewhat unattractive.
People do the leveling grind anyway because the end game content is so good and because their friends are already there and/or they want to try another character at that level. .
Playing different classes helps to alleviate the tedium, since the strategies and abilities are different, but still, it’s all been seen before. PvP might help here. Twink out your character a bit and run around ganking other players. PvP adds a level of interest to the game, especially when the players that you’ve been ganking get some pals and look for revenge. But PvP doesn’t help you level.
In the interests of avoiding further pain, agony, and suffering, here are the four best ways to get leveled fast:
1) Buy a level 70 character off ebay.com. This character has the levels and probably has the gear and might even have some cash (gold.) Take some time to learn to play and develop your skills. Of course, the one downside here is that Blizzard will ban you if they catch you, since this is against their Terms of Service.
2) Buy a power leveling service. Pay some cash, they level the character for you. Come back in a couple of weeks and you have a brand spanking new 70. What could be better? There’s just the small issue that this is also against the Blizzard ToS and they’ll ban you if they catch you. But what’s several hundred dollars down the drain?
3) Instance grinding - Find some high level character who is willing to take you through the many instances in the game. He will clean out the dungeon (kill everything) for you while you get the experience and the choice loot dropped by the bosses. Quite legal, quite boring, and you’ll have to work on your skills when done, but it’s fast.
4) Treat yourself to a WoW leveling guide. These guides provide you with a step by step path, already done by experts, that will take you from level 1 to 70 as quickly as possible. All of the “what to do and where to go” info has been provided ahead of time. All you have to do is follow the path provided and you’ll level up faster than you ever have before.
Then once you have good WoW leveling guide in your hot little hands, try this: Get a friend to open a new account. As of this writing Blizzard is offering a promotion where if you invite a friend then you and your friend will get triple experience for monsters slain and quests performed!
Team up with your friend. Duos level faster than singles anyway, due to less downtime and faster slaying, now add triple experience to that and you’ll see the levels fly by faster than ever before.
There are some conditions, so read the Blizzard FAQ page, but if you have a willing friend this is a killer way to go. Heck, if you have enough computing power you might be able to do it with two of your own accounts and run them both on the same machine.
Now, no leveling guide, for WoW or any other game, will be a magic pill that will poof you right to 70. It won’t get you leveled to 70 in mere hours of in-game time, since you still have to deal with all those monsters. It will, however, show you a well thought out, fast and efficient path that will get you leveled in as little time as possible. Even if your game time is limited to a few hours per week.
Assuming that you’re still bored, or in agony at the thought of more leveling, one thing that will help is to play energizing music in the background (no suggestions here since my tastes are likely way different from yours.) This will help keep you awake and motivated.
Some people who are skilled at multi-tasking have even been known to watch movies or read books while leveling! Sometimes however they also find themselves parked in a cliff face, due to having dozed off or the book/movie being really good.
The bottom line is this - save your sanity and invest in a World of Warcraft leveling guide. Not only will you keep from losing your mind, you’ll save many hours, even days, on the leveling grind. And isn’t your sanity worth it?

Author: John Molar
I just came across a WoW Leveling Guide and it really changed the way that I play. I used to be fairly conservative, only fighting when I had to and grouping whenever possible, but now that I’ve followed my leveling guide I don’t need to be a wuss anymore. I went from level 9 to level 61 really fast (faster than any of my friends who were the same level), and I didn’t play any more than I normally would.
So, I’ve compiled a list of reasons why I love my WoW Leveling Guide (and you will too!):)
1.They make me look like less of a noob – When I am following a leveling guide I always know exactly what I should be doing and when I should be doing it. To the players around me, I’m always the one that knows what’s going on. I never wander around aimlessly, looking for my next quest or trying to figure out where to go next. I’m in control because I know what to do.
2.I know what kind of leveling I can expect – All of the good guides out there tell you what kind of levels you can expect to gain when you follow them. Now, admittedly, some of the free guides can be a little tricky, but hey, considering their price I think they’re still really good. All of the guides that I’ve paid for have always been dead one, hence why I never have a problem paying for them.
3.I know the importance of certain quests and items – This key in any MMORPG. Knowing what you’re doing is important, but knowing what kind of equipment to have and what kind of items to obtain is equally important. I can’t even remember how many times I would have sold some really valuable items for less than they were worth if it weren’t for the guide.
4.I learn really cool “tricks of the trade” - Knowing all of the insider tricks and strategies is worth the few bucks I paid for my WoW Leveling Guide. I know that there are many free guides out there that get into similar details, so don’t think that you need to pay for a guide to learn some cool tricks. But, if you can afford it, they help!
5.Longevity is important to me – A good WoW Leveling Guide will help you get your character set up so that not only do you level, but you also build a strong foundation that will you to have fun while leveling. I’ve had experiences in other games where I’d reached a high level focusing on one skill set, only to find out that I’d built a very high level but inefficient character. Buying a WoW Leveling Guide up front helped me avoid the frustration of starting over because my character was too weak to handle the end game.
A good WoW Leveling Guide avoids this by giving you tips on how to build a good overall character from the beginning to the end.
I’m sure I could think of a few more, but I think those 5 points addressed what I had to say. I need to mention that I have noticed a difference in the quality between a free leveling guide and a paid one. You can usually find what you are looking for with a free leveling guide, but it will take more time and effort to put all the information together. With a paid WoW Leveling Guide, it is right there at your finger tips, easy to find and understand, so you can spend more time leveling.

Author: Michael Hutchins
Let’s face it, Wow tips are a dime a dozen in World Of Warcraft forums. Unfortunately, many of these suggestions are offered by players who have little or no real game experience. This article will reveal successful Wow strategies that have withstood the test of time, and have been implemented by many champions.
Strategy 1) Perform as many quests as you can, all at the same time. Quests must never be performed one at a time. When players enter a new map region,they must proceed to the main town first. After that, talk with all the NPC’s, obtain all the quests, then they can continue to explore. It is a point of fact that some quests are a waste of time.They often make you spend an hour or more running back and forth from different people. It is often in your best interest to quit quests and select other ones. Your time is too valuable to spend on useless quests.
Strategy 2) Make sure you use groups properly.This is one of my favorite Wow tips. Grouping can really speed up your power game, but execute it only when you have to. About a quarter of quests are group quests, and to try to do them yourself is a big time waster The exception would be if you wait until you are a few levels higher. At that point, the quest becomes green. For the balance of the quests, you can go it alone. Be aware of these stipulations, though. Many groups are inefficient. A group that messes around or continues to die trying to finish a quest will bog you down. You are in a better situation going it alone in this case. If you are a Shaman, or a Paladin, or have a fast method of self healing and mele both, you should probably spend most of your time soloing. Warriors and other types that mele well are better off in groups because they can’t heal. Also, priests and mages are better suited to groups because they lack armor function. Groups can be beneficial, but they must work efficiently.
Strategy 3) This is one of the Wow tips I give the most often: Honor Kills; stay away from raid groups just for honor points. You will gain almost nothing. Solo or a normal party is a better choice for getting the most contribution points. Being in a RAID will decrease contribution points down to the barest minimum for each kill.
I hope you received benefit from these 3 proven Wow strategies. I know that when I first started playing, I would have appreciated helpful Wow tips.
Leeroy Jenkins is an Internet phenomenon named for a player character created by Ben Schultz in Blizzard Entertainment’s popular game, World of Warcraft. The character has become popular thanks to a machinima video of the game that circulated around the Internet. The phenomenon has since spread beyond the boundaries of the gaming community into other online and mainstream media.
The character’s popularity resulted in his inclusion in the World of Warcraft (WoW) Trading Card Game. Reflecting the video in which he appears, Leeroy is a detriment to the rest of the player’s team, exhausting them for the current and following turns. For gameplay reasons, his effects are not entirely negative: although no one else can attack, Leeroy can attack instantly should the player repeat Leeroy’s famous shout, and his attack is unusually high compared to the cost of playing him.
Author: Ethan
World of Warcraft (WoW) currently holds the majority of MMORPG market. To estimate the hugeness of the game; there are roughly 11,000,000 characters in the world shelved under WoW accounts which may contain up to 10, which may compose of 54% in the Alliance and 46% in Horde. Humans topped the race count in Alliance, sharing 18% of the total population of the Guild, while Blood elves dominate the Horde. With the popularity of WoW, don’t you even wonder; are there famous people who own WoW accounts? If so, where are they in Azeroth? You won’t know until they tell you who they really are, not even if they’re sitting next to you.
Time to sniff the celebs who own/owned WoW accounts. The list may contain previous and active players.
Jonathan Davis, singer The lead vocalist of Korn has been reportedly playing an Undead, frost mage in the game. Interesting to see what else is there in his WoW account.
Brandon Routh, actor Superman himself plays the game. According to his statement, he loves medieval times and horses and he loves the WoW. No word what race, character, realm, or even how many characters does he have on his WoW account.
Robin Williams, actor Mrs. Doubtfire is an avid enthusiast of games. Owning a WoW account, he’s also been playing Battlefield 2 and Day of Defeat among others. It was reported that Robin used to play on Mannoroth.
Vin Diesel, actor Rumored, to have a WoW account and playing under the alias “Dish”. It was never confirmed.
Hiro Nakamura, actor The star of Heroes owns a WoW account. In an interview with G4tv, Hiro said that in the past, he ran a guild on Spinebreaker realm.
George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, singer The lead singer of the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse admitted that he has a WoW account and an addict of the game. He stated that his in-game character’s name is Dorkcraft. In the World of Warcraft: Wrath of Lich King, an NPC named “Gorge the Corpegrinder” can be seen in Northrend. This is undoubtedly the best reward for a loyal fan.
Mia Rose, porstar Mia Rose is a star in the adult film industry. A hardcore WoW gamer, it has been reported her WoW account got banned from the game when a fan recognized her and she openly mentioned her website in the public chat.
Unconfirmed reports also stated that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt also play and that they have multiple WoW accounts.
Comedian Dave Chappelle also admitted that he plays WoW.
Stephen Colbert is also reported to have a WoW account with an Orc character. Jessica Simpson, Topher Grace, Tom Welling, Yao Ming, Ben Affleck, Terry Gene Bollea (Hulk Hogan), Curt Schilling, and Cameron Diaz were all reported to have WoW accounts and are actively playing WoW or have played WoW before.
These people maybe humongous in their businesses, but in the World of Warcraft, it only shows that all are of equal status, as long as they don’t reveal who they really are in the real world. The next time you open your WoW account and play your character, don’t be surprised if you somehow bump into Oprah or George W. Bush. Warcraft is here to stay, and it’s a huge magnet for people.

Author: Jenny Cumbersome
So you like chasing monsters, you need action and never pass off a chance for some adventure and yes, you play World of Warcraft because it is an exiting and original game, this is exactly the reason it is still that very popular online role playing game. It is such a unique game because of it’s multiplayer online format. The fact that you need a PC to play this game makes it perfect if you want to create some art work with World of Warcraft as the main theme.
Art pictures, a way to remember
This game is very dynamic and there will always be moments that you are in a situation that will not happen again but you would like to have something to remember it by. Being a role playing game that is very, as said before, dynamic not found in other games. The perfect option in this game is that you take a snapshot of those moments of the game that you would like to take a look at later on. If you have an editing program like photoshop, gimp or something else why not create some art pics of World of Warcraft? Some would say that you are involved with the game but those people just do not understand the pleasure one can have from playing an online game. So never let yourself be discouraged by anyone if you want to keep some screenshots of those perfect moments you spend online in the World of Warcraft.
Need to settle a dispute
If only the online world would be better then the offline world normally is, but it is not. So as in the offline world there can be times that you need to settle a dispute with someone else, and having some screenshots to prove your point and case can be very helpful in those situations. There will always be people that will say that those pictures can be fabricated but an official that has the power to make decisions and who is unbiased will know what those pictures are worth.
Some of the other places
Why limit yourself to only your art pics of World of Warcraft of your online sessions? If you do a search there are a lot resources where you can get other art pictures, you will be amazed at the amount you will find. There are a lot of picture galleries where you can find graphic and art work from other players and a lot of times they are free of charge. Why not do some trading with other players, find forums online where you can post your screenshots and show the online community what you have achieved in World of Warcraft.
Maybe you want to have some nice artwork as your desktop background but you are not that artistic or creative, then you could always take a few screenshots and ask someone who has those capabilities to create a desktop background for you so you can look at those nice moments of your online live when your desktop is visible.

Author: Johan Krost
World of Warcraft, also called WOW by gamers, is an online massively multiplayer role- playing game (MMORPG).
Around twelve years back, Blizzard Entertainment developed a game called Warcraft, a single/multiplayer adventure game, which went on to become so immensely popular that they added two more Warcraft games, and World of Warcraft is the fourth game in the series. As on May 2006, World of Warcraft had over 6.5 million active users who were paying around $ 17 a month each to play it. That works to over 110 million dollars a month in subscriptions!
How World Of Warcraft Works
The World of Warcraft game takes place in a virtual gameworld called World of Azeroth. The storyline is fantasy-driven and like fantasies go there are many colorful and freaky characters in the game.
To play the game you have to choose a character from a variety of races (human, night elf, orcs, dwarfs, trolls, and more), and having chosen your race you have to decide what profession to take (hunter, paladin, rogue, shaman, warrior, and more).
Once you get into the game you are Level 1, the objective being to reach Level 60 while having a lot of fun adventuring around and gathering the best possible armor and weapons in the process.
To add to the fun there are friendly and hostile non-playing characters and also player characters that assign you quests, and then, of course, there are the enemies you have to slay in order to level up.
World Of Warcraft Gameplay
World of Warcraft is not ranked the number one MMORPG game in the world for nothing. It features two main gameplay varieties, which are : (1) Player versus Environment: When a player adventures in order to level up, he comes across game-generated enemies as well as other players who are against his race. (2) Player Versus Player: This is played only in specific areas where players can fight against other players, and such areas are level-specific.
For example, there might be an area only for players at levels one to twenty; if you are at a higher level, you cannot enter.

Author: Tom Kranz
One of the quickest ways to get ahead in a game is to learn from experienced players. This is where World of Warcraft guides come in - experienced WoW players who have been there and done that can share their expertise with newcomers.
World of Warcraft guides can help you on the quickest path to level up your character, and gain gold and rare items. WoW levelling can be time consuming, difficult and - frankly - boring. Speed levelling is the main aim of many new players, eager to start the real challenges that only high level World of Warcraft characters can access.
There is a wide range of available World of Warcraft guides. From the very basic high level overview, through to incredibly detailed step by step walkthroughs that cover all relevant aspects of the game. There are detailed guides for all character types, and whether Horde or Alliance you can find a guide to suit your needs.
The usual way to gain levels in WoW is by grinding. Repeatedly killing the same enemies or completing the same mission again and again is known as grinding. Although you can gain lots of experience and some loot by grinding, it is incredibly boring. Faced with having to grind to gain a few more levels, many players despair. The grind in WoW removes all the fun of the game and quickly puts off newer players who aspire to own rare loot and compete in large, challenging raids.
World of Warcraft guides choose specific quests to help you gain the most experience in the shortest space of time. Focussed on solo play, a side effect of most guides is that they teach you a lot about the mechanics of the game, helping you become a more accomplished player. By understanding the more arcane and complex parts of WoW, you can quickly master the more challenging quests.
The real question is - why do you play the game? Is it to meet up with friends? For enjoyment? To escape the pressues of life, living within the fantasy world of Azeroth? Why waste your game time grinding away on the same boring quests and tasks, when you could be enjoying the real risks and rewards of high level quests.
Reaching the higher levels within WoW is becoming more and more difficult for the casual player. By using a World of Warcraft guide you can easily enjoy the high level, more challenging aspects of gameplay, without sacrificing your personal life to the game. Good luck!
Author: Johan Krost
World of Warcraft (or WoW) is at the moment one of the most popular online role playing games in the world. You can logon anytime during the day, or night for that matter and you will find hundreds of thousands of people already inside the World of Warcraft servers.
All these people are grinding, questing, selling items, and basically trying to get their characters to level 70 in the best time possible. In some cases, it could take you a few weeks to reach level 70, for others a few months but, it can be done in days when you know what you’re doing.
Your WoW leveling speed is all up to you. It’s up to you on how long you play the game and it’s up to you on how you play.
If you can only put in a couple of hours a day then don’t expect to get to level 70 very quickly, the more you play obviously depends on how good you get with each new experience will could find an easier and quicker way of doing things. Two of the main ways you can gain experience and start levelling up quickly are grinding and doing quests.
So, a bit about questing. Questing involves going through some predetermined quests or tasks given to you by non-player characters within your game
While some of the quests can be easy for example, “Kill xx number of a certain type of enemy” other quests can turn out to be a bit more difficult and may involve travelling between more than one map while performing numerous tasks to finish the quest.
Quests are really what World of Warcraft is built around for its main storyline. Quests also strengthen the game by adding a lot of interaction between you the player and all the non-player characters in the World of Warcraft game.
What’s grinding. Well in simple terms it is easiest to say travelling around the WoW map looking for enemies to destroy.
You can go and attack groups of enemies which can have a high experience or you can go and seek out lots of enemies that you can defeat quite quickly.
Although this method can lead to a great deal of experience very quickly, it can also get a bit tedious and quite boring when you have to wander around the World of Warcraft map trying to find groups that will fit into the right criteria.
Also, you will not be able to stay only on one map and hope to be able to get to level 70. When your character begins to increase levels and gain experience, the groups that you were previously getting plenty of experience will begin to give you less and less as time goes on.
These fading returns stop you at around level 20 from gaining any further rewards by killing enemies that are levels lower than you. The time you will spend travelling from map to map will also slow your levelling speed.
Although grinding can and does help you reach level 60-70, it must not be your main focus within World of Warcraft.
Questing is the almost always preferred by players, including two who have been able to reach level 60 in almost record times.
Questing can also be great fun and add excellent experience in your play, going that route to reach higher levels in World of Warcraft will not only get the player to level up a lot quicker, but it will make your game a lot more enjoyable in the long run.