World of Warcraft Links and Resources

Listed here is the beginning of a giant list of MUST-HAVE links and resources for World of Warcraft. There are a ton of sites out there and most of them are really just a bunch of crap that offer no real value. We have looked over tons and tons of websites when we started to prepare this site and we want to give you the best stuff on the internet! We will always add to this and if you own a WoW that isn't listed here please send us an email at webmaster (at) warcraftgoldreviews.com and we may exchange links with you if we find your site helpful!

Totally Free World of Warcraft Guides has up-to-date information about World of Warcraft and many, many guides. You really must bookmark this site as it is packed full of information! The design isn't great but after speaking with the webmaster he is in the process of updating the design so it will look better and be easier to navigate around. They also have different WoW gold guides listed throughout the site

There are many item databases out there. Yet only a couple actually have enough data in them to become extremely powerful and useful. Thottbot is one that has been around since World of Warcraft was actually in beta testing. Allakhazam is another great one that in my opinion is a bit more user friendly. Either way they are both extremely valuable and I find myself using them often.

Of course, there is always the World of Warcraft community site that keeps all WoW players updated on changes, contests, and much more. They also have one of the biggest internet forums I have ever seen. Although navigating the forums can be a pain sometimes.

If you are like me then sometimes you really need some additional answers from the questions that you have about World of Warcraft. That's where this brand new World of Warcraft help site comes in. Just go there and read through the already submitted questions to find an answer you're looking for or just submit your own question that you want answered. That's the whole purpose of AskApadwe.com, the best place for WoW help.

Hands-On With the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game

After learning about the upcoming miniatures game during the World of Warcraft panel at Comic-Con, we felt it was our duty to check out the game firsthand. Here at GameSpy, we're not just online game addicts -- we've been known to toss a few dice around, and the game showed a lot of promise.

First, the miniatures themselves. Speakers at the panel described these as the best of breed, and we're inclined to agree if the final production quality is as good as the demo sets we played with (Upper Deck insists they will be). A typical complaint about pre-painted plastic miniatures is that the paint is usually sub-par -- eyeballs out of place, lips just a smear of paint on the cheek, etc. -- but the WoW minis had the look of being lovingly handcrafted. Multiple colors are used to delineate shading, and the paint is used to highlight the intricacies of the immensely detailed models. The poses are dynamic. There's really some workmanship in these figures, which will likely give them some collectability above and beyond their use as game pieces.

As with the HeroClix game pieces, game mechanics are built right into the figure's base. Each miniature stands on a sturdy platform that has two dials on it. One dial on the base displays the turn number of the piece's next move (more on that later), and another dial at the figure's feet shows how many hitpoints the character has left. You can tell at a glance who's moving when and how healthy they are.


A Draenai Paladin prepares to strike.

Gameplay

The basic minis set will feature a two-player battle using four figures [Editor's note: we originally reported a three-on-three battle]. To play, you'll need a game mat consisting of a large hex grid. The demo mat (and presumably the mat that'll come with the starter set) has helpful tracks on it to track what turn it is and how many victory points each side has collected.

One interesting mechanic used in the WoW miniatures game is the idea of a "timeline," printed as a series of large numbers at the top of the game mat. Characters are allowed to make their move when it's their turn on the timeline. After your character does an action, you click the base of the miniature a set number of clicks to indicate when the character will move again.

This provides the game with a kind of built-in balance, and it also helps recreate the feel of World of Warcraft combat. Big, powerful moves -- such as huge spells -- cost several rounds, so you won't be able to move again for several turns. Faster (but weaker) attacks don't cost as much time, so your character will be able to move again quicker. There are several offensive moves you can make to "stun" or delay an opponent. For example, your Warrior piece might be able to use the "charge" ability. This attack allows you to move an extra space, roll an extra die of damage, and "stun" your opponent by forcing them to click their piece so that it moves later in the timeline. It's a simple mechanic but it maps out really well to how Warriors fight in the computer game.The various attacks in the game are divided into physical or magic attacks, and every character has a separate resistance to each. Damage is resolved using a pile of 10-sided dice; Every time you roll a four or higher that's considered a "hit." Then your victim can roll for his or her defenses, getting a chance to block each point of damage using the same mechanic. Example: My Warrior has an attack strength of six, so I roll six dice, some of which will hit. Your Mage only has a physical defense of two, so you roll two dice, which can block up to two hits. The total damage done is simply clicked off by spinning the counter on the base of the figure. Combat moves very quickly.

Rolling a "10" on a die while attacking means that you score a critical hit, the effects of which are different based on the character and the attack. A Warrior might merely do a point of extra damage. My Night Elf Paladin, on the other hand, heals all friendly units around him whenever he scores a crit.

In addition to each character's regular attacks, players can also use attacks from their "action bar." These special attacks are represented by cards that you bring into battle with you, two for each character. These collectible, tradeable cards all describe various effects, similar to the attacks you'd use in the computer game, causing fear, mind blast, etc. Other players can't see what's on your action bar until you flip the cards up, which adds an element of strategy and surprise.

It took a few turns to get used to using the timeline and to adjust to the combat (which involves gathering a handful of ten-sided dice for every swing), but once we had a feel for it the game moved fast. Maybe not as fast as a real arena battle online, but it certainly had the feel of fast, frenetic combat with decisive blows and surprises.


Onyxia lunges. More dots! More dots!

Winning the Game

Victory conditions are determined by the type of army you field, which is a great self-balancing game mechanic. Every hero you put on the battlefield has an "honor" value. Your win the game when you score victory points equal to the honor value of the army you're fielding. Every kill is worth a fixed four victory points, no matter which unit you kill. Depending on the scenario, you can also earn points from the map (the demo scenario was a kind of "king-of-the-hill" game, where players got victory points by holding or standing next to the center of the map.)

The upshot of this system is that it's not required to have perfectly balanced armies to play the game. One player can bring 30 points worth of units into the battle, and the other player 20. The player with the larger army just has to work that much harder to win.

The real focus is on positioning your units, choosing the right abilities for each, and being strategic about your attacks. A gnomish Mage can cast some ferocious spells, and can shrug off most magical attacks with her high resistance. But if someone with a high physical attack can get next to the unit, she's toast. The mechanics are simple, but there's a layer of strategy there. Maybe not enough for serious wargamers, but certainly a good balance of depth vs. playability.

In addition to the demo figures on display, we also got a good look at the epic Onyxia figure that Upper Deck is working on. This dragon was immense, and also painted with the same loving detail head-to-toe as the tiny character figures who surrounded her. No price or release date has been formally announced for Onyxia, but we're expecting to see her next year. As for the rest of the game, look for it on shelves in November. Four-figure starter sets will retail for $24.99, and booster packs, with three random figures each, will be available for $14.99.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Mac)

The second expansion pack for the awe-inspiring MMO, World of Warcraft. The Wrath of the Lich King takes players to a new area in northern Azeroth, Northrend, where the fallen prince Arthas plots and schemes on a way to wreak havoc on the world. As soon as players enter the new area, they'll be thrown into a new world of trouble that includes an original storyline, a level 80 cap, new skills, abilities, dungeons, gear, an extra profession and a brand new hero class, providing an added level of longevity to the world's most popular MMO.

How To Go From Rank 0 - 14

Ok, I have been doing a lot of research in my spare time and have crunched a few numbers and I think I finally made sense of the honor calculation system Blizzard has in place. I hope this thread will shed a little light on exactly how leveling and the honor system works. Please feel free to add things to this post about the honor calculations because there are still a few areas that are hazy to me and that I don't have difinitive answers to.

If there has already been a thread like this I apologize in advance. I didn't see one anywhere so I thought I'd share my own findings. Here it is.

The Basics:

1. Honor points are accumulated each time you take part in the killing of a player of the opposing faction.

2. You are penalized if your level is less than 60 (meaning you don't gain as much honor for a kill as a level 60 does).

3. Your total amount of honor points are added up at the end of each week (during server maintenance).

4. Your total honor for the week determines your standing on the server for that week. Obviously, with standing #1 being the highest you can achieve and so forth.

5. Your standing determines what share of rating points you will recieve for that week. The higher the standing, the larger share you get.

6. Your rating points are points that you earn (different than honor points) each week based on your overall standing on the server for that week.

7. Your total amount of rating points determine your rank: Rank 14 is 60,000 and above, rank 13 is 55,000-59,999, rank 12 is 50,000-54,999 and so on.

8. If you finish standing #1 on your server for the week, the largest amount of rating points you can earn is 13,000.

9. Each week you automatically lose 20% of your total rating points (Honor Decay). This gets kind of confusing because of the cap for rating loss. The cap is 2500. So, the most rating points you can lose is 2500 for the week. So, in essence, if you don't finish high enough in standing for the week to earn back the 20% you lost, your total amount of rating points will decrease. Example:

Player A has a rating of 52,000 in the previous week. Player A does not pvp at all in the current week. Player A will lose 10,400 rating points essentially, but it is capped at a maximum of 2500 loss for the week. So player A would only drop from a rating of 52,000 to 49,500 (Rank 12 to 11).

Where it gets hazy is, "How do I know what standing I need to maintain my current rating". I don't quite have a formula to answer that question, but any help on this would be much appreciated.

The Skinny:

So, with all this info I have put together a chart to show you how to go from rank 0 to rank 14 and how long it will take you to do it under absolute PERFECT conditions.

The chart below shows what would happen if you started to pvp from scratch (Rank 0) and you finished #1 on your server every week, and you earned the maximum of 13,000 rating points each of those weeks (remember that is under optimal conditions which I will explain more after the chart). Here it is:

Week 1: 13,000 Rating Rank 4
Week 2: 23,400 Rating Rank 6
Week 3: 31,720 Rating Rank 8
Week 4: 38,375 Rating Rank 9
Week 5: 43,700 Rating Rank 10
Week 6: 47,960 Rating Rank 11
Week 7: 51,368 Rating Rank 12
Week 8: 54,094 Rating Rank 12
Week 9: 56,275 Rating Rank 13
Week 10: 58,020 Rating Rank 13
Week 11: 59,416 Rating Rank 13
Week 12: 60,533 Rating Rank 14 (Grand Marshal/High Warlord Woot!)

So, it IS possible to go from rank 0 to 14 in 12 weeks.

Now, like I stated above, this is only possible under OPTIMAL conditions. Those conditions being that you finish #1 on the server every week, you are allotted the maximum rating points each week (13,000), and you are level 60.

The Grey Areas:

Here are the things I am either not sure of or have no data on at all.

1. Blizzard states that your faction's participation in pvp as a whole also has bearing on the total amount of rating points to be given out for the week (the total rating pool). So, I'm not sure how much the faction has to pvp in order for the #1 standing to receive 13,000 rating points. I don't know if it's a certain amount of honor or what. Any clarification on this would be a help.

2. The only constant I am aware of for rating points earned is the 13,000 per week maximum. I do not have any data to help me calculate what each standing's maximum per week is after standing #1. So I'm not sure if it's percentage based or what. For all I know the maximum rating points that can be given out for a week for standing #2 is 12,000 (just throwing a number out there). I don't have any idea how these are calculated, but from researching many threads and other sites, I assume it is % based. Any help on this would also be appreciated.

3. Also, from what I have read in the forums, I have come to the conclusion that it IS possible to go from rank 13 to 14 even if you finish as low as standing #3 for the weeks leading up to your rank 14. I have not heard, seen, or read anything lower than this. Please post if you have info regarding this issue as well.

Common Misconceptions About Honor Points:

The common misconception about the honor system is the honor point total you accumulate for each week. The amount of honor you accumulate for the week is not the end-all be-all. This is because it is all relative to what other players have done for the week. I'll give you an example:

In week 1 Player A busts his hump and receives 400,000 honor, but he only finishes 15th on the server in his faction for that week.

The next week, he doesn't pvp quite as much and still gets 350,000 honor, but he finishes 9th in his faction on the server.

How is this possible you ask? Simple. Honor points are only a measuring tool to show how well you did compared to other players of your faction on your server. So, in week one of our example, Player A just happened to be amongst others who pvp'ed heavily for that week. In week 2 when he thought he wasn't pvp'ing as much, neither were his peers, and that reflects by his standing for the week.

In Closing:

I hope this guide has helped people understand a little bit more about the honor system and how Blizzard calculates ranks.

If there is anything I left out of if anyone can add to my findings it would be much appreciated. I will try to update this post with any new information I get.

Also, If I am totally wrong in my findings please let me know. I don't want to be posting bad info up here.

Please bump this post if you found it useful and informative so others can see it too. Thanks all!

Wrath of the Lich King: Beta Tidbits (PC)

We tend take it as a truism that MMOs can be can be reduced to a series of grinds -- ones that we consensually undergo because the rewards are somehow worth it. If you look at WoW, the nature of the grind may have evolved a little bit, but it hasn't really changed. At first, we grinded instances and raids for boss drops. Then the honor system came along, and we began grinding ranks. And when the honor system changed, we did it for points -- and often, no real effort was required on our part (forward to 5:27).

But the grind truly came into its own once The Burning Crusade launched. Badges of Honor -- which have become more and more liberally dispensed as the expansion was iterated on -- made it so that we had an incentive to run even those dungeons that we liked least. They did away with the notion of the rewardless instance run; regardless of whether or not you got a bauble from a boss, the handful of badges you'd walk away with would net you something useful. Eventually.

We've gotten used to incremental rewards for time spent. There's a lot to say about this, but that's outside of the scope of this piece. Blizzard too has gotten much better at building systems into WoW that work around our willingness to be incentivized in this way.

Effort Sink

Introducing: Heirloom items. Following yesterday's beta update, a player found these fascinating items on a badge vendor, which prompted a response from Lead Designer Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan on the forums. People who've been playing MMOs for a while will be familiar with the concept behind them. Essentially, Heirloom items are bits of gear that are tied to your account, as opposed to "bind on pick-up" or "equip" items, which you can't transfer off your character. They're meant to be transferred between all your same-faction characters on the server you purchase them on. Remember how in older MMOs, you could get a nice piece of gear and recycle it between every other character you subsequently created? That's what's going on here -- though of course, Blizzard has put a few twists on the concept, adeptly fool-proofing, in my opinion.


Special thanks to the WoW community for this screenshot.

Primarily, Heirloom items will scale in level depending on who equips them. This will happen every 10 levels. In the case of armor, they'll change type once your characters cross level thresholds that permit them to equip stronger classes. For instance, a piece of mail armor for a warrior will turn into plate once you level to 40. In terms of relative power, the items will be comparable to equal-level blues. And as far as enchants go, you can throw anything on them that you'd be able to cast on a level one item.

Blizzard reps went on to mention how the designers have plans to expand the "Bind on Account" concept further down the road, as well as to enable ways for players to acquire this kind of gear outside of badges and Wintergrasp shards. But for now, it looks fairly certain that you'll have yet another reason to continually rerun whatever ends up being Lich King's answer to heroic Mech.
WoW's never really solved the problem of racial abilities. No one's ever provided us with a compelling reason to make anything other than a Gnome warrior or Undead rogue if you intend to do a lot of PvP. Tons of solutions exist, some of them admittedly pretty radical, like making racial abilities unusable in arenas, or simply pooling all racials, and allowing players to choose the ones they want. Perhaps not surprisingly, WoW's designers seem to be opting for the most challenging approach: scrapping "problem" racials, and designing a whole bunch of new ones.

There are a few mentions of improved racials, both on the boards and in-game. Trolls, whose selection has widely been regarded as complete garbage since WoW launched, have a new passive ability called "Voodoo Shuffle," which grants them a 15 percent reduction in movement-impairing effects. The Blood Elf racial "Arcane Torrent" has also been simplified to a straight two-second AoE silence, accompanied by a mana drain effect.


This placeholder hints at things to come for Human racials.

According to a post from Tom "Kalgan" Chilton on the boards earlier this morning, some big changes are in store for Humans and Night Elves. Humans will be getting an ability called "Every Man for Himself," which will essentially mimic the functionality of the PvP trinkets, removing any effects that result in loss of character control. It'll be on the same cooldown as the trinkets. The net result, as deduced by the community, is to give Human PvPers a free trinket slot. Lucky Humans.

As for Night Elves, Shadowmeld will see a big change-up. It'll work a like a combination of Feign Death and Vanish: When you cast it, you'll go into stealth, and enemies will lose aggro, and automatically lose you as a target. The latter effect also applies to opposing players, making it potentially more useful than you may originally think.

If Blizzard can implement such meaningful changes to every race whose abilities are hurting, then this is truly a good deal. But if, say, Trolls aren't going to become any more viable, than perhaps the designers have bitten off a bit more than they can chew.

Gold Guide: My way of making gold easy

Hey, Elbenzo here

Ok, I'm about to tell you how to make easy gold. Make a new character (I personally made a gnome mage) and get it to level 5, then teach it tailoring and enchanting. Get your tailoring skill to 30 (EASY!) and teach it to learn how to make a white linen robe. Now make lots of these and disenchant them all, then sell the products on the AH. Then as you're tailoring and enchanting go get some greens and disenchant them if you don't need them. Again, sell the products on the AH. I have personally made over 100g with this and my char is only level 10! My main currently is level 33 so I can get lots of greens for my alt to disenchant. If you have any problems message me in-game. My char is on the EUR realms and is on Anachronos. My two characters are called Bashmore and Goldengnome. Make a level 1 on the realm if you don't have one and message me.


TY Elbenzo