A
    Alex Ziebart

    Alex Ziebart

    Owner

    When not writing for WoW.com or his personal projects, Alex is most often found playing WoW Alliance-side on the Cenarion Circle server.

  • The Queue: /salute

    Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today's Queue is my last here on WoW Insider. You're all beautiful. The face my character makes while saluting, though? A little less beautiful. squaredK2 asked: what was your most rewarding moment in doing The Queue?

  • WoW Insider is logging off

    WoW Insider began operations on November 23, 2005. On Tuesday, February 3, 2015, WoW Insider operations will cease. I'm finding it difficult to say much more than that; eloquence fails at a time like this. We certainly weren't expecting it. Barb Dybwad personally launched the site that evolved into the one we know and love. Elizabeth Harper later took the helm as Editor-in-Chief, ushering the site from infancy to adolescence, and from there the helm passed from Liz, to Dan O'Halloran, then eventually to me in October of 2011. It's a tough job steering this ship. The winds are fierce and the waters choppy. It's a bit dramatic to say something like heavy lies the crown, but I suppose I need to take the opportunity while I have it. Though, I don't think sea captains wear crowns. What a terrible metaphor. I meant to segue all of that into a discussion of our merry crew, our beautiful band of staffers, the WoW Insider personalities we've all come to love in the years, but I suppose you already know them. How couldn't you? Just imagine Matthew Rossi singing a sea shanty. We wrote by shanty, you know. Audio conference call on the high seas all day, every day. Honest truth. Cross my heart. In our final hours, however, I want this to be about us. Not just us, the staff. You, too. Our readers. We did what we did, and what we do, for all of you and with all of you. We've always done our very best to embrace the World of Warcraft community. We worked to ensure all were welcome. It didn't matter who you were or how you played, how casual or hardcore, we wanted you to know you had a place. It wasn't about being first to the news -- it was about ensuring everyone had the context and information necessary to understand it. Through features like The Queue, and through you, we tried to pinpoint exactly what the players needed and how to deliver it. It was about giving praise where it was due -- and criticism, too. We pushed to make the game better, and a better place, whenever we could and wherever we could. We couldn't have done any of it without you. In the end, we were friends. I can think of no other way to put it. Staff, audience, community. We were friends. This is the end of WoW Insider, but it isn't the end of us. Friendship lives on. What comes next for our intrepid crew? You'll find out soon, but not here. Follow us on Twitter and keep that date, February 3, close in mind. You don't know what our Twitter handles are, you say? Let me help: Adam Koebel Adam Holisky Alex Ziebart Anne Stickney Dan O'Halloran Dawn Moore Elizabeth Harper Elizabeth Wachowski Matthew Rossi Michael Gray Scott Andrews Give me a shanty, lads and ladies. Onward until dawn!

  • Last Week on Massively: Expansion or riot

    This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post. You gotta love a week with tons of huge MMO news! Guild Wars 2 avoided a riot by announcing its first expansion, The Elder Scrolls Online revealed it's going buy-to-play ahead of its June console launch, and Star Citizen declared that its persistent MMO portion will roll out to testers this year. Meanwhile, PAX South has wrapped up; here's a look at what we've published so far: PAX South 2015: O'Brien and Johanson on Guild Wars 2's Heart of Thorns PAX South 2015: Garriott and Long talk Shroud of the Avatar PAX South 2015: Camelot Unchained's proactive community management PAX South 2015: Hangin' with Frontier, playin' Elite on the Oculus Rift PAX South 2015: SWTOR reveals its plans for this year PAX South 2015: Notes from a Star Citizen town hall PAX South 2015: Slaying giants in Motiga's Gigantic PAX South 2015: The Untitled Game is whatever you want it to be PAX South 2015: The Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns experience Read on for the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

  • The Queue: Lightning round

    Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Anne had everyone entranced with her tinfoil hat in yesterday's Queue and left us with a serious lack of questions. Today is going to be a simple rapid-fire day. Make with the asking! xeraphax asked: With the changes coming to salvaging, should I keep my crates till 6.1 or use them now?

  • Hotfixes for January 21

    A week has passed since the last round of hotfixes, but a new batch has been released tonight. Tonight's round includes bug fixes, class balance changes, and more. The Garrison Campaign fixes include: A Stolen Heart: Azuka Bladefury should no longer be getting stuck in evade mode for Horde characters. Primal Fury: Completing the quest should now correctly award Thisalee Crow (Alliance) or Choluna (Horde) as a Follower. A fix to award the followers for players that have already completed the quest will be made at a later date. Socrethar's Demise: Resolved an issue that could cause the banner used to challenge Socrethar to not work correctly. The full list of hotfixes can be found below.

  • Last Week on Massively: Hizzy in a tizzy

    This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post. SOE's H1Z1, affectionately called "hizzy" by gamers generally opposed to syllables, lurched into Steam early access this week. The really-still-in-alpha survival-flavored zombiebox, which boasts hundreds of PvE and PvP mini-servers, provoked outrage from fans who consider the game's airdrop mechanic "pay-to-win," which led SOE to offer refunds and apologies. Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top stories.

  • The Queue: Blackrock Foundry and more garrison questions

    Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I've been watching Young Justice again and find it funny that Superboy is essentially The Hulk for the bulk of the first season. What does that have to do with World of Warcraft? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. KingMarvel asked: Is the Blackrock Foundry raid in the 6.1 patch? I know this raid is coming out in February but is it simply unlocking or are we getting the new patch?

  • Patch 6.1: Claws, Pincers, and Tusks nerfed

    Deep down in the blackest parts of my heart, that place of darkness and hate, I have reserved a special place for the garrison mission Claws, Pincers, and Tusks. It's an irrational, unnecessary level of hatred for something so mundane, but come on. The mission requires a total of 5 ability counters for a mere ilevel 615 chestpiece! It's more difficult to 100% than missions that provide way better gear! That's just unreasonable. In patch 6.1, Claws, Pincers, and Tusks requires only 3 ability counters: Group Damage, Massive Strike, and Deadly Minions. Beremus the Overseer has been removed from the mission altogether, leaving Tarina the Ancient as your followers' only foe. Perhaps, when patch 6.1 goes live, I might be able to let go of this hate and feel joy once more.

  • Patch 6.1: Trade Iron Horde Scraps for follower equipment

    If you have a stockpile of Iron Horde Scraps, whether that be due to disinterest in transmogrification or already possessing all of the items you want, you'll be able to put them to good use in patch 6.1. While the War Mill and Dwarven Bunker are already a steady source of follower equipment, patch 6.1 implements a daily quest wherein you can trade 25 Iron Horde Scraps for an additional piece of gear. When you turn in the scraps, you have a choice between an Armor Enhancement Token or Weapon Enhancement Token -- the same items you can earn through select follower missions. That means there is a random element to the reward, your ultimate outcome being anything from a three ilevel improvement via Braced Armor Enhancement to an automatic ilevel 645 via the far more rare Goredrenched Armor Set. If your garrison has been running a Salvage Yard and War Mill/Dwarven Bunker since launch, you most likely have a stockpile of follower enhancement items already. If you haven't had those running for months, this daily quest will be a solid catch-up mechanic.

  • Patch 6.1: Dummies will (hopefully) stop murdering you

    On live realms, the training dummies found within the garrison often prove to be a problem for DPS players. With the tanking dummy standing right next to the damage dummy, any sort of splash or cleave damage -- a baseline part of many DPS rotations -- hits the tanking dummy which proceeds to kill the player. The issue renders the dummies effectively unusable for many players who might be interested in practicing their rotation. On the patch 6.1 PTR, the damage and healing dummies have swapped places. The tanking dummy remains on the far left and the damage dummy is now on the far right. Even if you accidentally hit the tanking dummy with a bit of AOE damage, you're standing far enough away that you won't be brutally murdered by an ostensibly inanimate object.

  • Patch 6.1: Garrison follower mission UI updates

    The patch 6.1 PTR introduces a number of updates to the garrison mission table UI, many of which will be well-appreciated. First, the mission table provides more at-a-glance information about mission rewards without need for a mouseover: ilevel of equipment, the exact number of experience points, and so on. If you do hover your mouse over a mission, a new array of information will be displayed: the ability counters required (and whether you have followers who can counter them) and the mission availability -- that is, how long the mission will stay in your list before it expires. If you have a follower who could counter something but is currently unavailable due to being on another mission, the tooltip will even tell you how long until that follower becomes available. If a mission will expire before that follower returns home, you can quickly and easily make the decision to try that mission with less than 100% chance of success. The tab which displays your list of followers has also been updated. At the top of the menu, the UI now displays the total number of each ability in your active roster. If you have 7 followers who can counter Powerful Spell, for example, that is displayed at-a-glance. As someone who keeps a spreadsheet of his followers, it's a welcome addition. It's likely I'll still keep my spreadsheet, but having the ability to quickly reference that breakdown will make it easier when it comes to recruiting new followers from the inn each week. Using follower upgrade items has also changed: you no longer click on the item, then click on the character's portrait in the list. Instead, you click the item, click the portrait in the list, and then click on their full-size image to use the item. That change seems unusual -- it adds a redundant step to the process -- but the redundancy might be intended to prevent misclicks. An image of the new follower tab can be found below; it's a big one.

  • TradeChat's latest WoW jokes

    The WoW Insider Weekly Recap will return next week, but in the meantime, TradeChat brings us another edition of her WoW Jokes series hosted by her cast of fictional characters. You'll groan more often than you laugh -- but a good groan is sometimes just as good. Be warned: the video does contain some language we would consider NSFW.

  • Patch 6.1: The heirloom tab and how it works

    As we've mentioned previously, the heirloom collection UI (or "heirloom tab") is now live on the PTR. The UI resembles the Toy Box and functions in much the same way: if you have an heirloom item on your account, it will be automatically added to your collection. Unlike toys, mounts, and pets, when you acquire a new heirloom, it will be added directly into your collection with no need to "learn" the item. When you want to equip one of your heirlooms, you click on the item in your collection and the game creates a duplicate of that item in your bags. If you want to get rid of it, you simply throw that item away like a piece of old paper. If you wanted to, you could fill your entire inventory with Bloodied Arcanite Reapers. I don't know why you'd want to do that, but with the new heirloom system, you could. The system for upgrading those heirlooms doesn't seem to be fully implemented in the current PTR build. While we know heirlooms will be able to be upgraded all the way to level 100, the items for doing so are not currently available on the heirloom vendors. The vendors, Krom Stoutarm for the Alliance and Estelle Gendry for the Horde, sell a variety of heirlooms and the level 90 upgrade items: Ancient Heirloom Armor Casing and Ancient Heirloom Scabbard. The Scabbards don't seem to work at all right now and the Armor Casings don't bring an heirloom up to level 90 as described -- it brings them up to level 85.

  • Last Week on Massively: 2015 is a big year for The Elder Scrolls Online

    This post originally appeared on Massively from Editor-in-Chief Brianna Royce. At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO story last week, you've come to the right post. The Elder Scrolls Online this week announced more changes for its endgame veteran ranks system against a backdrop of fairly credible rumors concerning its console launch date and future business model. Read on for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories.

  • The Queue: Followers, transmog, and gross items

    Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I managed to lose a day this week and thought today was Tuesday rather than Wednesday. For that reason, The Queue is a little late today. I hope you'll all forgive me. Snichy asked: Does getting a follower to "epic" quality have any benefits over them being the same iLevel but blue?

  • Hotfixes for January 13

    After today's long maintenance, another list of hotfixes has been revealed. Some highlights today include: Blackrock Caverns: Rom'ogg Bonecrusher's Skullcracker ability should now correctly deal damage to Angered Earth elementals, allowing the achievement Crushing Bones and Cracking Skulls to be completed. Arathi Basin: Players should now always have a fixed 25-second resurrection timer while in a Rated Battleground match. Many garrison items, such as Salvage Crates, now stack to 20 The full list of hotfixes can be found below.

  • Breakfast Topic: Dungeons in Warlords of Draenor

    Straight to the point: how do you feel about dungeons in Warlords of Draenor? Personally, I think they're solid bits of content -- most of the dungeons are fun, and in a video game, that's praise enough. My only exception to that is Grimrail Depot. I expected the zone to evoke the feeling of a wild west train heist more than it does, which might simply be due to the type of game it is. World of Warcraft won't ever feel the same as, for example, Call of Juarez Gunslinger. The dungeon never feels like you're anywhere but in the stationary depot portion of the dungeon until you fight Nitrogg Thundertower and the trials and tribulations of pickup groups through the dungeon finder saps some of the magic from that particular encounter. Beyond Grimrail Depot, though, I adore Warlords dungeons. Unfortunately, I haven't been running them very much because they simply don't feel rewarding. The massive item pools means you have a hard time getting items you actually want. And now that LFR is open, you can get better gear more easily and nearly bunny hop heroic dungeons in their entirety. I'd like to see dungeons become more rewarding in this expansion. If not the loot inside of the dungeons, then perhaps giving you a shot at LFR-quality loot from a bag at the end of a dungeon each day. LFR loot is already so ubiquitous it feels like a why not? situation. I also wonder if simply pulling the daily objective out of the dungeon finder pane and onto a daily questgiver in my garrison might make me feel differently. There's a lot of simple psychology at play in games -- seeing a blue exclamation mark right in my face might compel me to complete it and I'll probably have a good time doing it. Tucked away in the dungeon finder, I will never see it and never remember to queue for a dungeon from which I don't need loot, even if I'll have fun.

  • The Queue: A barn full of cash

    Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I have a mighty long response to today's first question! Morte asked: You say "there are more than enough ways to make gold", could you give us a few ideas? I'm having a tough time keeping enough gold on my alts with all the garrison building expences.

  • Haunted Memento nerfed for server stability

    Back in patch 6.0, the plague event drop Haunted Memento was nerfed to provide a random, 15-second haunting, rather than provide a constant ghastly companion. Many who owned the item didn't notice the change ... but those who did notice weren't too happy. The item, no longer able to be acquired, was something special. Why the change? Community managed Bashiok shed some light on the subject: Patch 6.0 and the change to Haunted Memento It was the #1 source of creature spawns within the game, which was causing server performance degradation, and during launch we changed its behavior as one of many tweaks to help recoup some server headroom. Due to the ongoing demand on the game service (and likelihood of similar demands in future expansion launches) we're not currently planning to revert it to its old behavior. source The Haunted Memento being the #1 source of creature spawns is somewhat fascinating -- given the (perceived?) rarity of the item, we were surprised by that spawnrate. Even with the creature respawning every time a player zoned or took a flight point, we wouldn't have expected it to be so significant. The nerf to the item is unfortunate -- especially given reports that the ghost's spawn buff can break players out of stealth -- but it seems necessary given this information. However, if the item does break stealth, hopefully that's a bug that can be fixed.

  • Hotfixes for January 8

    Another day, another batch of hotfixes. Today's round includes various bug fixes and balance changes, but the big highlight might be an additional change to trapping mobs for the Barn. In addition to the previously announced hotfixes, the following has been added: Requires a realm restart] Increased the spawn rate and number of spawn points for Direfang Alpha, Ironhide Bull, and Wetland Trampler. This hotfix will be deployed in combination with the hotfix from January 7 to increase spawn rates slightly. You can find the full list of today's hotfixes below.