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Filed under: Games, Windows, Open Source

Max out your World of Warcraft character with a free, open-source application called Rawr

This is one of the most popular and effective tools to improving your WoW gameplay. No, it's not the Peggle add-on (though that is very cool) -- I'm actually talking about an external application! Something you can use in the office, away from your gaming PC!

This tool is very popular amongst the serious World of Warcraft players but chances are, if you're a little more casual, you've probably never used it, let alone heard of it.

I'm about to tell you how all of those weak, made-of-paper mages do so much more damage than you and your rusty, rogue swords. You've probably wondered how -- try as you might -- one particular player always does more damage or heals more. "They must be cheating, damnit!" Well... almost! They're actually using an application called Rawr.

Rawr lets you experiment with different weapons and armor, upgrades, sidegrades -- you name it, Rawr lets you do it. We WoW players call it 'theorycrafting': it's like... Warcraft only... in theory. You don't have to actually be playing WoW to theorycraft. In fact, many people theorycraft in a loud and excited manner, often in public, on the back of napkins (it can be very embarrassing). The term itself predates World of Warcraft incidentally, originally coming from the Starcraft days of yore.

If I haven't sold it to you yet and you need further proof as to why Rawr is awesome, just watch the video after the break.

Read more →

Filed under: Games, Internet

The biggest ban ever: no more World of Warcraft in China

Chinese Coke bottles! Poached from the Escapist, but readily available on the Web anyway.Did you know that four million Chinese play World of Warcraft?

You probably knew that a lot played it -- and that WoW has 13 million subscribers or so -- but four million? That's almost the population of Denmark or Scotland. And they're all having to go without their Warcraft fix... again!

After a relaunch in September, the operators NetEase have been forced to shut down the realm of Azeroth yet again. Now, this isn't Blizzard being indecisive or something: no, it's two wings of the Chinese government getting their panties in a knot. Y'see, there's a department that deals with PR -- the General Administration of Press and Publication... comrade!! -- and the more-sensibly named Ministry of Culture. Neither of them seem to be able to decide whose jurisdiction WoW actually falls under -- and until they stop swaggering around and one actually backs down, we may not see WoW return to China.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard are losing the subscription fees provided by one third of its player base. But not to worry... Modern Warfare 2 is out this week! A lot of people point to the 13 million subscribers and marvel at the amount of money that WoW must make for Activision Blizzard -- but their MMO revenues only account for 35% of their total takings. The rest come from their huge COD and Guitar Hero brands.

Thanks to the magnificent, circumventable behemoth of the Internet, WoW players in China are just logging into the servers over in Taiwan anyway. Hooray!

[via VentureBeat]

Filed under: Games, Web services, Social Software

Twitter's new frontier: World of Warcraft?!


With Twitter catching on around the globe, it's probably not surprising that it's starting to turn up in virtual worlds, too. TweetCraft is an in-game Twitter client for World of Warcraft, allowing WoW players to tweet from the game, and even auto-tweet in-game events. Hey, people cover professional sports live on Twitter, so why not WoW, too?

WoW is known for its extremely dedicated players, so TweetCraft is actually a line to the outside world for people who are playing the game full-screen all day. It can automatically tweet when you log on, and automatically post new in-game achievements to Twitter, which is really no different than what FourSquare does when you check in or get a new badge. Even better, you can send screenshots to Twitter using TwitPic. Again, people TwitPic things they see in real life all the time, so an in-game analogue totally makes sense.

Filed under: Games, Utilities, Macintosh

WoW Watcher - is your World of Warcraft server up?

Here's one for all the hardcore World of Warcraft players out there. If you play WoW on a Mac, and you need to know at a glance whether your favorite server is up, WoW Watcher is for you. Not only does it do a great job of displaying the server lists, it also includes a menubar item and Growl support. That way, you can get notifications instantly, without ever having to switch focus to the app.

The server list is searchable, and sortable by name and type (normal, PVP, etc.). WoW Watcher will also automatically launch WoW and log you in when your server is up. For the true WoW addict, this app might prove indispensible to avoid missing a minute of gaming. Just as a side note, this app is not to be confused with another, unrelated WoW Watcher that tracks in-game item prices.

Filed under: Fun, Internet

HD wallpaper from NerdBusiness

pixel monsterThat picture of Fluffy is never quite the same once you blow it up on your big, HD monitor. Fluffy looks less cute and much more pixilated than in real life. In fact, a lot of pictures and wallpapers just don't look the same.

The folks over at NerdBusiness have just the solution. They have assembled 218 HD wallpapers for your viewing pleasure. Everything from mint leaves to scenic photos to otherworldly Photoshop environs and Mario Party 8 shots. Our favorite? Digg-er from mandolux.com

Check it out and see what looks good on your big screen.

Filed under: Design, Developer, Fun, Games, Web services

Mapping WoW with Google's API


World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massive multiplayer online game (as if you hadn't heard about it already), one that has such vast landscapes for players to traverse, it really needs its own map or something. Among the many add-ons available for WoW, I have yet to find a mapping add-on that I actually like. Being an early adopter is hard when the rest of the world doesn't understand. I would love it if there was a resource for WoW that was up to my chronic downloader's standard, using something like Google's map API.

Alas, there is such a resource (many in fact, but few that use Google technology), called MapWoW.com. Long time players have known about it for ages (and are probably asking why I just found it now), but it does in fact use Google's API to create some of the best WoW maps available. There are resource overlays so a player can view graphics where and what things are with the check of a box, overlayed on the map. You won't be able to find your local burger joint on this map, but it is a very creative and well put-together use of the wildly popular Google Maps API.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Macintosh, Freeware

It's time to slay dragons

If you've been playing World of Warcraft for any length of time, then you know that there are just some quests you can't do every day. They're too special, too "l33t" to happen all the time. Like slaying the great dragon Onyxia. Or trauling through the menacing dungeon Zul Gurub in search of really rare treasure. But, if you're not paying attention to the spawn schedule of these quests, then you may miss your chance to go on them! And what fun is that?

Fortunately, there's a great widget for OS X's Dashboard called World of Warcraft Raid Calendar that will remind you when a periodic instance raid is about to spawn. It will even display a countdown timer for the most sought-after raids. It works with any Warcraft realm server, and is available as a free download.  Windows users, well, no OS X, no Dashboard. No Dashboard, no Raid Calendar Widget. 

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