August, 2008

Just a quick note to say that version 2.1 of Warcraft Characters [iTunes link] has just been released on the App Store. You should be able to update as usual either via iTunes or directly on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

"This release added few missing stats (defense & spell hit, apologies to warlocks and tanks), arena team support, and lots of bug fixes."

There has been an interesting turn of events to the native iPhone and iPod Touch application called Armory Browser [iTunes link]. I reviewed this application just a few days ago and on Friday the new 1.1 update was available on the App Store.

I was about to do a followup review outlining the changes in this update but found out that Blizzard has issued the developer, Kelly Heffner (aka Theoria) of Pwnies, a cease and desist notice. Apparently Blizzard views this as an unauthorized application and that it is potentially causing them "irreparable damage".

Now I'm wondering if the other iPhone application developers have received a similar notice? There are presently four World of Warcraft related native iPhone and iPod touch applications on the App Store, two of them are free (Warcraft Characters [iTunes link] and WarcraftStat [iTunes link]) and the other two are paid (Armory Browser and Warcraft Arena Calculator [iTunes link]) at 99 cents (US) each.

It may be that Blizzard is taking issue to the fact that Armory Browser is a paid application, and that it's using or accessing their freely provided service (the official WoW Armory), but that is purely speculation on my part. If this is the case I wonder if just providing the application for free will stop continued action?

I don't know all the legal issues or circumstances behind this notice, but regardless of the real reason it appears that Armory Browser will no longer be developed and will be pulled from Apple's App Store on Monday, August 25, 2008.

It's really too bad as it seemed the developer was really keen on making a nice application and feature rich application. The new release added improvements including a "Favorites" feature so you didn't have to keep retyping in your character's name, as well as some beautiful artwork commissioned from KiroColor.

The "Find an Upgrade" button still opened up mobile Safari, but I was told by Theoria (via an email) that it was done intentionally for the initial release to avoid any confrontation with Blizzard. Ironic isn't it?

Perhaps this is a warning to all developers to be careful what they are doing with Blizzard's intellectual property. Perhaps it's an indication that Blizzard may be working on their own native iPhone armory browser? Again, just speculation.

I truly hope this turns out differently.

Lately I've neglected playing any of my multi-boxed teams. I believe the last time I got on to any of them was when Patch 2.4 was released and I got the level 30 mounts for Team DoubleD. Wow, has it been over a month already?

I haven't given up on those teams, I just got into doing other things. The distraction actually began in mid-July when I checked Team DoubleD into an Inn to get some rest so I could have some rested XP when I resumed. So I hopped back over to my hunter, Ziv, and it was at that time that I started the endeavor for that Frostsaber mount. I also joined a new guild that I enjoy the company of and have been doing instances with them and gearing up the core group.

We've slowed down a bit on the instances and I've been getting anxious to run the teams once again. To get back into it, I'm going to participate in the "Recruit-A-Multiboxer" program but haven't done so yet. It turns out the with the "Recruit-A-Friend" program there is a serendipitous benefit to having Team DD resting in that Inn for so long. So here's my idea and plan.

The idea is to play Team DD and use up their rested (double) XP before changing over to the "Recruit-A-Friend" program. Why would I first use up the double experience gains when I could get triple experience from being in the program immediately? Well, it's to get even more double XP. Confused yet?

Everyone knows that participating in "Recruit-A-Friend" will yield triple experience from killing mobs and quest turn ins. Participating in it also means that any rested XP your characters have already or gains while in the program will not be consumed. So that means the rested XP bonus will be waiting there for when the program finishes (either by hitting 60, or by reaching the 90 day limit).

If the characters are already capped with rested XP (like Team DD should be for being in that Inn for so long), they won't gain any new rested XP. See where I'm getting at? Use the double XP now to get more double XP later. Pretty nice huh? But why should I do that when I should be able to get to 70 within those 90 days right? True, but I also want to use the program bonuses on several teams that I'd like to level all the way to 70, and since the triple XP gains ends when my team gets to level 60, the rested XP is just a nice additional bonus. So basically I'm just leveraging it so I could take maximum advantage of the program.

So that's the idea at least, the plan is to play Team DD for a few more days until my second account is due to have it's subscription renewed. Then I'll be able to "recruit" myself and start reaping the new benefits. So it's double XP now, and double XP later, with a lot of triple XP thrown into the middle.

There's another World of Warcraft related iPhone and iPod Touch application available on the App Store. It's called Armory Browser and as you could probably guess from the name, it's an armory browser.

I know this was released a while ago, but to be honest there are so many new applications being released, that I didn't even see this until today. The application is written by Kelly Heffner and though it's not a free application, it is only 99 cents (US).

I actually did purchase this application. Though there are other free alternatives that offer more, like Warcraft Characters, and the still in development WowiArmory I wrote about earlier, it's still potentially worth the price of admission. My initial impressions are that it's definitely a 1.0 release so it could be improved but the potential for so much more is there.

It's a decent rendition of a character's WoW Armory page. I say that because once you enter in a character name and realm, you are greeted with a layout that is very similar to the official WoW Armory site with some information in the middle and your items along the edge of the screen. Clicking on an item shows you that item on a new screen. It's not quite like the armory page though as the only information about your character's stats are limited to Talent point distribution and your Trade Skills level.

There's an interesting button on the bottom of an item page, "Find an Upgrade". I was hoping this would bring up a nice list of items, but instead was sent to the actual WoW Armory page for that item. This meant that the program had to close and open up mobile Safari to access the official WoW armory. Very disappointing especially since closing the program meant that I had open the program again and since it didn't save my character's name, I had to type that in again too. This means it will do this every time you want to search for an upgrade for a particular item. This behavior also happens when you click on the Talent button in the middle of the main screen; it will take you to the WoW armory talent tree page.

There's an issue that you can't input character names that have any unicode characters in it, but the developer is already aware of this and it's listed in the FAQ.

The application doesn't appear to cache any information locally and accesses the armory with every query, so you will need to be connected to the internet of course. Performance is fast over WiFi and 3G, but surprisingly also very responsive over the older Edge network. Download speeds and thus responsiveness is naturally linked to the quality of the connection and not the application itself. It proved to be stable while I was using it, but I didn't expect it to be unstable either as it's quite straightforward as to what it's doing.

As I mentioned, it's a 1.0 release that is available on the App Store, but version 1.1 has already been submitted (on August 14, 2008) and is just awaiting Apple's approval. Looking at the preview, it appears that it will be made to look nicer with only a minor change in functionality. There's no mention of any functionality changes to the "Find an Upgrade" or the Talent button, so I assume it will still link directly to the WoW armory. I hope a subsequent version will address that issue as it's somewhat of an annoyance, but at least in 1.1 I shouldn't have to to keep retyping in my character's names.

Personally I think this application has potential but right now has a ways to go if it is to match the features already present in Warcraft Characters. I am encouraged that this application is in active development and look forward to the updates. Others may balk at the idea of paying for this application, but at 99 cents (US) I don't think it's unreasonable. I believe in supporting and encouraging new developers in hopes that they will improve their product and add user requested features. I will look forward see how far my 99 cents (US) will go.

If you are interested in following along with the development of this program, you could check out the application's blog.

Here's the direct iTunes download link.