Beware of Scam Phishing emails!

by Mithoron, 2 hours ago

Another friendly reminder for EVERYBODY to beware of SCAM and Phishing e-mails! In this day and age I highly recommend ANYBODY who has a Warcraft account get a Blizzard Authenticator...it will be the cheapest $6.00 you ever spent and well worth 10 times that amount!

Here is an example of yet one of the latest phishing scams I recieved:

Quote:

SUBJECT: attle.net Account Management Greetings! Recently, the problem of account invasion is getting worse and worse which cause enormous player¡¯s equipments and virtual currency stolen. This severely damages the benefits of mass players, also causes our company lose a lot of customers. Our company has to adopt some measures to safeguard our common benefits in order to strengthen the safety of mass players'accounts, and firmly resist the account to be stolen again.Through our company's research and investigation to xxx customers,we will make the following decisions: we launch a package of updated code strengthen system and dynamic code protection card which can effectively prevent the accounts invaded. We will send this package of code protection system to players free of charge. Please open this connection: LINK REMOVED TO PREVENT PEOPLE FROM CLICKING! If your account passes the check successfully, we will send this package of dynamic code protection card to you in the form of e-mail. In 3 days after you receiving the e-mail, if you don't submit your information, we have right to freeze your account, every player is obligated to protect the safety of the account. You must work together with us to be determined to crack down all the behaviors of destroying games. If you had already authenticator your account, please disregard this automatic notification. Regards, The World of Warcraft Support Team Blizzard Entertainment

Key features to know this is a scam:

1. The return address is not from BATTLE.NET but from batt1e.net (note the 1 versus L)
   
2. The subject header misspells Battle.net
   
3. Poor Engrish throughout the email
   
4. Various misspellings throughout the email
   
5. The link it refers to is NOT a Blizzard link (removed to prevent somebody from clicking it)
   
6. "Dynamic code protection"? The new term for Trojan and virus?

Just alerting everybody to not believe everything you read on the internet (except from me of course) and to watch what you click!

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The King and I

by Stagmo, 8 days ago

Congrats TEW on our first kill of The Lich King (10 man)!!!

Beta, it's not for fun!

by Mithoron, 9 days ago

With the beta preview of Cataclysm and such now going on, MMORPG has a timely article on why Betas should be avoided...

Quote:

In the summer months it’s easy to fall into a sort of gaming doldrums fit. For one, it’s so nice out that I feel guilty about playing too many games, usually reserving my sessions for after nightfall or on rainy days. For another there’s usually a lack of quality games released in the summer months. Part of me thinks the developers of some of gaming’s major upcoming MMOGs realize this and have strategically decided to start betas or at least begin sign-ups around the hot months. And while the itch to sign up for such an event may be often too hard to ignore, there are some valid reasons for saying no to the opportunity to test the next crop of MMORPGs. DC Universe just announced sign-ups, The Old Republic has begun testing, and Guild Wars 2’s beta is right around the corner. Sure there are a slew of positives, especially in the “Open Beta” phase serving as a sort of try-before-you-buy for games that generally don’t offer a demo at launch. But by and large, we think you may be better served by resisting the urge to hop on the beta bandwagon, and here’s why… 5.) Shh… It’s Secret! Everyone has their own opinion on whether or not the secretive nature of most MMO betas is a necessary precaution for the developer or a pointless way to keep your potential user base out of the loop, but the main thing for the beta-hopeful to remember is that pretty much any game that lets you in on the fun will be expecting you to keep quiet about it. And if you’re the type of gamer who goes out of his way to sign up for a beta test, chances are you’re the type of game who wants to tell the world about it… and yet you can’t. This of course leads to the NDA leaks we all know and love/loathe, and then those who are on the inside start getting lambasted by those on the outside, the developers and PR people have a muck of a mess to deal with should said leaks damage the reputation of the game, and in general the whole thing just becomes a giant practice in aggravation on all sides. Unless some fearless game developer comes along and says, “Hey come test this game, and talk about it all you want” one could argue that it’s not worth your time to put up with the NDA attached to a beta experience. 4.) Beta (for the most part) =/= Live Game This is always debatable, as often times the game you play in Open Beta is going to be very similar to the game you play at launch. But at times when you begin your stint as a tester in the early stages of development, chances are the game’s going to change tremendously between beta phases, much less between now and launch. As is too often the case, I see my friends and internet peers form opinions of a game from five minutes spent tooling around with the beta client, never to return or watch as that game progresses toward launch. I do believe that Open Beta is often a great indicator for a release product as developers usually use OB phases to merely stress test the game, but a great many developers who genuinely try and seek help from the community in terms of feedback only get players looking for free games to waste time with. As anyone from years ago who spent time in the early World of Warcraft beta can attest, there’s a reason these things are often selective of who they invite to participate, and why they’re under NDA. Still maybe developers need to be even more selective… or just scrap the public beta notion altogether. 3.) Not Permanent MMORPGs are known for their permanence. Beta tests for these games are not. Okay, so you’ve been accepted to test and play The Old Republic. Let’s say for the sake of this example that you can play all you want seven days a week. Let’s say that the game really hooks you, you offer plenty of feedback to the developers, and soon you find yourself playing TOR more than any other game on your hard drive. After all of your hard work leveling your Jedi Consular, after the weeks you spent leveling him or her up from scratch, and after all of the quests you’ve completed… it gets erased as the game moves forward into launch. And then you realize you’ve got to do it all over again. Yeah. That part sucks. Don’t pretend it doesn’t. But there are better reasons than that to avoid getting too into betas. 2.) It’s Really Meant to Be Work Going back to number three, the beta testing experience is not meant to be just free time for you to play an unreleased game. It’s meant to be a volunteer “job” of sorts where you help out the developer by playing the game, reporting bugs, and providing feedback on the gameplay experience. All too often I hear of folks signing up for beta just to get an early taste of “The Next Big Thing” and they forget that the beta experience is supposed to be something of a QA job for dedicated hobbyists. Tying in with the above, if your goal in gaming is to have fun, beta might not be the best place to look. It’s bound to be riddled with bugs and deficiencies, downtimes and other development hell problems. So unless that part of the game development process really interests you as a fan of the industry, it might be wisest to stay away from beta testing. 1.) Burn-Out Ultimately when we sign up for a beta, we’re signing up as gamers. All MMOs, no matter how deep and diverse they may be require a time from us when we must put them down, go outside, and take a break from the virtual world. MMO Burn-Out is a common side effect of indulging in too much of a good thing. I can’t think of a single game, MMO or not, that I haven’t needed a break from at one time or another. And I can name several that have gotten stale for me and have never reverted back to their “fresh” state. Why then would you want to risk running into this problem during beta? Why would you want to risk getting all your excitement for launch day worn out before the time launch day even rolls around? To me, this is the best reason to avoid playing a game’s beta. I understand the need to “test drive” a potential purchase, and thankfully we have Open Betas for that very thing. But if you want to retain any sense of mystery and anticipation at all about some upcoming game you’re jazzed for, I’d heartily recommend avoiding the beta experience. It will wind up making those first steps into a new world that much more exciting.

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Cataclysm Preview: Questing in Mount Hyjal

by Mithoron, 10 days ago

MMORPG continues their review on Cataclysm now that beta servers are up and running:

Quote:

So in continuing previews of Cataclysm, we wanted to take a look at Mt. Hyjal. The zone really is the first place that many level 80s will venture to when the expansion opens. I transferred by shaman over to have a look around the zone and learned that for all of the new features coming with Cataclysm, WoW remains WoW as we have known it for the last six years. You start in the zone by doing quests with the Druids to help restore the World Tree. The area instantly opens with starting quests to take out some rock elementals and some fanatics using Fairy Dragons to snuff them out. Two quick and easy quests that most experienced players will go through in less than ten minutes. It is World of Warcraft all over again, day one. The zone is nice and does have some great terrain features to it, but the game play and design are the same as we have known for a long time. One thing that was a shocking reminder to the old days of WoW I had known was that I chose a PvP server (Gilneas) for my beta, since I play on a PvP server in regular WoW. Instantly I am reminded of ganking as two level 82 Alliance are standing there waiting for me. Well, on a PvP server you take your lumps and keep going. So I did after a few fights though it was time to move on. I do like PvP servers in WoW and would never change over, it was just that I had grown comfortable in my Dalaran home base, with various raid and battleground trips. You can easily forget what it is like leveling in the open world as well as becoming a target for the other faction. After running a few quests, I took flight to check out the zone as a whole. It is definitely telling of the Cataclysm story line as the Druids and their great tree look to be coming back from the brink of fire and brimstone disaster. In one giant crater where there are fire elementals running wild, it was good to see old Baron Geddon sitting in the middle holding court. I spent many nights on massive raids in Molten Core back in the old days of WoW. It’s nice to see the characters returning. The one not-so-great thing about Mount Hyjal is that the quest lines are very linear, similar to the starting zones for Worgen and Goblin. The game moves much faster now and Hyjal proves that. While running quests from the various hubs in the zone I truly did not feel like I was lost in terms of story and grinding experience. The system is much more streamlined and give players a better experience overall. If this has been done overall with Cataclysm, which I have heard the Blizzard devs talk about, then the game will move better for players. Finding and completing the quest hubs improved with Wrath of the Lich King and is now much smoother in the news zones for Cataclysm. Overall Mt. Hyjal has been a good experience, even with the PvP fights going on at almost every quest hub. Still, that is my choice as a player. The zone is solid, has a good story line and keeps you moving through areas at a nice pace so you don’t get tired. There is one thing that I must point out that always kills me when Warcraft does an expansion when it comes to gear. With all of my raid gear from Ice Crown, the minute I get the first drop in Mount Hyjal, the Green item I get is instantly better. I know it has been a while and I know that Blizzard has to find ways to motivate characters to play and gear is always one of those major factors. It still hurts when you see a first drop green item that is better than your epic rig. Call it a personal feeling, I just always felt that Blizzard should keep the epics strong, at least until the first blue drop from the instances. Now that my shaman has transferred I will continue to explore and review the new zones in Cataclysm. I am looking forward to checking out the new under water area, Vashj’ir. I have to admit, there is no way I can look at the zone and not think of Dark Age of Camelot’s Trials of Atlantis expansion. So when I write that article I will be doing a close comparison of the two. Which leads me to think about how Cataclysm is being presented and what similarities there are between the two games, are they alike? There certainly are comparisons that can be drawn. Next week we will start looking at the other zones as well as some new features from some older games.

Personally it's not a very glowing review for somebody like me who left WoW out of boredom of the same old same old and wondering if they should return. For those that still enjoy the normal vanilla WoW stuff it may keep you going...but at this point, doesn't seem like anything new other than the scenery...

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RSS Feeds now available!

by Mithoron, 14 days ago

Forgot to mention this with the latest Guild Launch updated, but for those interested:

Guild Launch wrote:

RSS Feeds have been on my to-do list for a while. Today, 3 critical items came off that list. 1. A behind the scenes system for generating RSS feeds is now in place. Meaning we can more quickly create new ones. 2. We now have an RSS feed for each news widget. 3. We now have an RSS feed for recent public posts. 4. We now have an RSS feed "summary" page. This page is linked from the footer and shows the available feeds. We've also put feed links where appropriate. For now, the data shown is what is publicly available. We'll tackle authentication in a later iteration. Enjoy! Stephen

Now you can get up-to-the-minute news delivered to you without having to come to the website!


Also, for those interested, Guild Launch is currently working on improving the Mobile sites for guilds. If you view the site with your mobile device and are interested in testing this feature out, PM me and I can give you the URL of the test server with our site for suggestions, comments, improvements! This will be enabled in the next couple versions...

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RAIDING POLLS....

by Mithoron, 15 days ago

In order to start scheduling the various raids for the remainder of the summer and possibly Fall, I have created FOUR new polls in the POLL SECTION (see Navigation bar at top).

Please vote on which days you would prefer for EACH RAID. NOTE that MULTIPLE CHOICES ARE PERMITTED...so vote for any days you can raid, which raids you prefer which days, and which preference for which raid is preferred for which day you prefer...

The possible choices are:

• Halion (25-man) <== NOTE, due to officers not providing enough information, this should be a TEN MAN raid...
  
• ICC (25-man)
  
• ICC (10-man) Fresh Raid ID
  
• ICC (10-man) LICH KING

DKP suspended

by Bigdiesel, 15 days ago

Effective immediately DKP has been suspended on 25 man raids. This means that all TEW guild members are now allowed to PUG ICC 25 & Ruby Sanctum 25 on all of their toons (mains & alts)

Please see the detailed post in the members section for information on why we came to this decision.


Thanks

BigD

Cataclysm Preview: Worgen Starting Zone

by Mithoron, 20 days ago

From MMORPG:

Quote:

Ah Gilneas, where somehow Azeroth turned into eighteenth century Europe. The Worgen opening zone plays more like a first chapter in Underworld or The Wolf Man than anything else. The Alliance gets the Worgen, for some, they are the cooler looking race with Cataclysm than the Goblins. I mean who doesn’t like Werewolves? Well the Worgen have some great play options and a racial ability that is similar to a Sprint. Let’s take a look at the new race, their starting zone, and how they measure up to the Goblins on the Horde side. Gilneas is the area where you begin your journey as a Worgen, but you don’t actually. You start as a human and from levels one to five you are given a random human avatar to run around as. The opening quest chain is very linear and events move throughout the zone as you work with the Greymane court to rid the various districts of Rampaging Worgen. In terms of story, I found it strange that I was constantly killing Worgen in the first five levels, only to eventually become one. Also, I found it disappointing to design my own cool looking Worgen only to see my character on the screen be a human when I first logged in. It’s okay though. I’m putting my faith in Blizzard that the transformation movie will be worth the quests for the change, sadly, it was not yet in the beta. Hopefully next patch, I cannot wait to see it. Again the opening Worgen area plays a lot like the Goblins and the Death Knight starting experience. It’s more like a story than an MMO. Events are going on around you as the Worgen are attacking townsfolk and battling with Greymane nobility, who look like something out of a Sherlock Holmes movie. I chose a Druid to play and found that running around an 18th century gothic looking setting casting plant and moon spells felt funny for me, but it was only the beginning. There’s a lot of story for your character to follow and events move from district to district in the town. At one point in the Military District I went back to find my Druid trainer and the NPCs were gone because the event had closed. The pacing of these story style quests is a breath of fresh air to WoW. Even though you are still killing eight Rampaging Worgen or collecting five Supply Crates, the environment still has a sense of urgency to it. Two quests that stand out were helping Lord Darius fight the Worgen on the top of the wall. You have to survive and onslaught of Worgen as they storm the wall for two minutes. It racked up some nice XP and had a fun feeling, when done I had already gained another level. The other quest was the Rescue of Krennan. You are given a Horse and have to jump up to save an NPC who is hanging from a tree. My only complaint with the Worgen is that unlike the Goblins, they are not given a mount to drive around the zone with. However, the zone and quests do have a much more streamlined linear model than the Goblins do. So while the Goblin zone is wide open you are given a hot rod to get around in, the Worgen zone is more streamlined. So after running the quests I woke up in the stocks as a Worgen. Finally my character looked like the one I designed. I do like the look of the race, but the movement seemed a bit clumsy. Still the speed boost was great and gives the Worgen a racial ability that is actually useful in game play. I do think that the race overall is a great addition to the Alliance. If I played Alliance, I would definitely be a Worgen. The biggest thing to remember is that Blizzard is going for more variety and different quest styles in their new starting zones. With the addition of minigames and more themed style quests, the zone actually moves faster and plays better. Also this was the first time I had played WoW in a long time where I did not care about my experience bar. I never once looked down to see how I was progressing. That to me is an achievement because the story kept me going. I know some think Blizzard is going for the fast food MMO approach, but some of those changes are definitely for the better. If anything the Worgen starting zone did not seem like a grind to me, even with the kill ten mobs quests. We will continue our look at Cataclysm next week with some features on Mount Hyjal and other high levels zones. I’ll be bringing in my shaman for some leveling and exploration. Unfortunately he is Resto main spec, so I’ll have to use Enhancement again, which is fine, my gear is not as good, but come this fall we all start with the same gear score again.

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Cataclysm Preview: Goblin Starting Zone

by Mithoron, 22 days ago

From MMORPG:

Quote:

There are those on the Horde side who are unhappy with the Goblins as our new found allies in Cataclysm. There are others who cannot wait to get back at the Alliance and their annoying little Gnomes running around giggiling. After playing the Goblin opening zone for a while, it looks like the Horde will eventually be happy with these scrappy little merchants who can play any class except Paladin and Druid. The Goblins are fun and offer a new race to the Horde even though they are small; they definitely make up for it with attitude. So, on the island of Kevan you begin your journey as a goblin. I created a Goblin Mage. You begin by doing some basic quests to clear a mine of giant worms as well as getting some trolls back to work. Nothing is to surprising here as normal WoW quests go, but things pick up as you start to do more quests and eventually get the Goblin Hot Rod. That’s right; The Goblin Hot Rod makes the whole opening zone fun. The quests continue as you repeatedly go back and forth with the Merchant Prince of the island. He walks around in a mechanical machine checking on things and giving you quests. It seems like there are schemes afoot though as the merchant prince is also holidng various treasures and running the island like a corrupt politician. These are goblins after all; the racial ability "discount" alone should tell you how they do things. Cash is king for the Goblins, but we knew that already, right? Back to the Goblin Hot Rod, this is by far the highlight of the opening zone. How many people would have wanted a mount when they first started the game back in 2004? I can remember running back and forth from the Valley of Trials to Sen’jin Village to Razor Hill, having the Goblin Hot Rod would have made life much easier. This is by far one of the best ideas the Blizzard has implemented into an opening zone. Mounts in the game have become standard and there is no reason players should have to foot it around anymore, even in the early zones. The Robot Football quest was fun, but way too short. For a great set up and funny dialogue the quest was over in about two seconds. Then another follow up to kick the field goal between two smoke stacks. When you come upon the field and get asked to jump in the game I think Blizzard could have done a lot more with this quest area. Sure it reminded me of Blood Bowl, but what football style game with Goblins doesn't? Another quest that was fun was running over looters as you drive around the island. This goes back to Blizzard’s wicked sense of humor and each looter you hit with your car not only bounces off the hood, but the loot bag flies up and lands in the back of your car. Fun stuff even though it was ridiculous, I guess they view Kevan as a place where they don’t have to take WoW too seriously. The island definitely plays more like Rayman’s Raving Rabbids than Warcraft. Another quest that was fun is checking out the goblin party and having to entertain the party guests. If a party guest is dancing, you can go and dance with them. If they are puking, you get to give them a bucket. One of the party guests is eating, hand him a leg of turkey, while another wants more drinks, so you can hand them a glass of wine. These small UI quests are fun and change up the gameplay a little. Another quest where we get to play a fun minigame is when you break into the Goblin Bank. You have to play a game of memory with several devices you use to open up your vault. These minigame style quests are appearing more and more in WoW and are a nice break from the “Kill 10 Wolf Pups” quests we have come to know. Overall, Kevan is fun and the Goblin starting area definitely has a sense of humor. I did like the look of the Goblins which I never thought I would. I usually play Orcs by nature and thought the Goblins would look silly. They actually had some fun custom options and making giant ears is always a laugh. The Goblins are a great addition to Warcraft, yet once again it is just a race with no new classes. I still believe that MMOs should launch a new race with a new class to the mix. Say all you want about game balance, as much can be said for game variety as well. I do like the Goblins, but they would have benefited from a new class as well. Next up, I’ll go through the Worgen starting zone.

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Updated Addons

by Stagmo, 22 days ago

Bidder has been updated, so make sure you get the new one from the site.

This should fix the "I have it but it's not showing up" problem.