Need even quicker access to The Warcraft Armory? If your sudden affinity to task shortcuts has you drooling for faster access and searches over Blizzard's main database for World of Warcraft, then quick add-on solutions are available to your perusal. Actually, it's available with conditions: if you've got Mozilla.org's Firefox browser as your Internet surfing tool.

Though there are many search engine add-ons available at Mycroft search engine dev page for Mozilla, there's just a few that function well. One for example was coded by a player for World of Warcraft, though it seems Blizzard may have their own official version in the works.

"It's actually being worked on at the moment, keep an eye on the armory page. It should be going up within a day or two," said community manager Drysc, keeping care not to drool on the poster below. Okay, we were kidding about the last part.

Aside from that single statement though, there isn't much else to go by, so we'll just have to wait for developer updates in a few days or so. In the meantime, you may want to try out this WoW player-contributed search engine add-on, provided via the Read link below.

 

Ever been as curious as to how Blizzard's The Warcraft Armory database uses "Relevance"? You may have, since there are times when searching for a World of Warcraft character sometimes yields different search rankings when you decided to search for it again. What changed significantly wasn't the information within the document (although over time, it does); it was the percentage followed by the field "Relevance".

Yahoo! Search has it and so does Google Search. So you can be sure that The Warcraft Armory for World of Warcraft would have it, too. "Relevance" is commonly used as a way to rank potential matches based on your search parameters, such as the exact spelling and arrangement of words in a search phrase for instance.

Then why does an exact character search phrase yield a search list ranking the intended page on number eight - even if it came up as item number one earlier? Because much like Yahoo! or Google, the Armory's Relevance ranking changes over time. This has much to do with other factors that affect the Armory's relevance values.

And going through the Armory's FAQ, you can find that these factors would also affect relevance: the level of the character and the last login time of the character. So expect that two characters of the similar name - yet different realms - would result in one character ranking higher than the other, because the higher ranker logged in two hours ago while the lower ranked character logged in three days ago.

A few players have tried to log into the World of Warcraft Armory through the link "http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com" and found themselves redirected to "http://www.wowarmory.com." This is not a bug nor is it a hack, it has already been changed by Blizzard themselves.

Blizzard Poster/ Community Manager Nethaera herself confirmed that this is an official update. Aside from the link change, there have also been quite a few updates on the site itself which should make using The Armory a little easier for players. Here are a few of the major changes:

• Improved paging and column sorting
• Improved right panel display
• Faster item tooltips
• Open Armory links in new windows/tabs
• New advanced item search button
• New "tips & breaking news" text on front page
• Many general speed and performance fixes

So go ahead and give it a try. The optimization of the system looks to be working alright. Accessing the system and its features have never been faster. If you want to get the more details on all the updates, head on over to the WoW Armory though our Read Link. All your questions should be answered there.

Sad news for the World of Warcraft grinders out on the fields. Apparently, come August 13, 11:55 p.m. PDT, a total of 34 realms will undergo some rather heavy system maintenance. The Blizzard team approximates the duration of the purge to last for around 48 hours. They're going to be optimizing WoW infrastructure for the affected realms.

A closing statement from Blizzard states: "Please note that during this time, some services such as the Armory or Paid Character Transfers may be unavailable. Your patience and understanding are appreciated." Alphabetically listed below and grouped by letter are the realms affected by the maintenance:

• Aggramar, Argent Dawn, Arthas, Azgalor
• Bleeding Hollow, Bloodhoof, Burning Blade, Burning Legion
• Durotan
• Earthen Ring, Elune, Eonar, Eredar
• Gilneas, Gorefiend
• Kargath
• Laughing Skull, Lihgning's Blade, Llane, Lothar
• Madoran, Magtheridon, Malygos, Mannoroth, Medivh
• Shadowmoon, Shattered Hand, Skullcrusher, Stormrage
• Thunderhorn, Thunderlord, Trollbane
• Warsong
• Zul'jin

World of Warcraft players are currently arguing over at the MMO video game's official community forums about a certain passive Arms tree Warrior Talent known as Blood Frenzy.

Accordingly, the talent states that it is capable of increasing all physical damage caused to a target by four percent. Aside from that, the in-game tooltip states as well that Rend and Deep Wounds abilities also increase all melee damage caused to a target by two and four percent respectively.

The problematic thing here are the words physical and melee. Does Blood Frenzy only apply to melee (in Rogues/Shamans/Warriors) or does it refer to anything physically attacking a target? Good thing though that Blizzard's forum moderator Salthem stepped in and provided the following explanation,

There was a bug in the in-game tooltips in which some of them were incorrectly displaying that Blood Frenzy increased melee damage. This was corrected to say physical damage, which is what Blood Frenzy does. I guess this fix did not reach the Armory, so I will forward this.

There, that should take of that little problem. Now, let's all head back to the Outland and wait if the Lich King will indeed be making his wrath felt soon.

Here's a nifty new treat for all of those Armory fans. MMOGuildSites has released a new tool for people called the Armory Character Info Generator.

With the Armory Character Info Generator, you can actually create an information sheet for your character based on information taken from Blizzard's World of Warcraft Armory. Much like your actual armory page, it will list down your pertinent statistics such as gear, HP, spec, and tradeskill levels.

The big difference is that you can actually embed this onto your blog or webpage, so people can see what your character is like without having to check the armory themselves.

It's got some shortcomings though, such as the listing certain types of green items by their base name (thus not showing the attributes of the magic item), but it does happen to be very useful, if only for bragging rights and the chance at a spiffy site addition.

 

In Blizzard's World of Warcraft, or in any MMORPG for that matter, reputation is a very big thing. Now, to be in WoW's Hall of Fame in the Armory is to join the ranks of the elite, it shows that you were (and probably still are) a member of the top 0.5% in your battlegroup.

We mean these are the people you really don't want to mess with when you're up and about in a PvP area. Most if not everyone who competed know that every team member who played in at least 20% of his or her team's total games also receives an armored Netherdrake mount and a title as trophies.

So most of the players you see on the list of teams will probably be sporting a netherdrake making them pretty hard to miss when out in the field. If you didn't make it to the list, however, you can head on over to the Armory via our Read link to check out the next *cough* targets you have to take down this season two.

If you're on it, congratulations, you can head over there just to see your name on the list.

Frequent participants to Blizzard's World of Warcraft PvP bouts may want to check out the official site, as we pick up word of some good news.

Listings have now been included for epic veteran rewards on the Honor Rewards page and includes a new selection of cloaks, belts, bracers, rings and necklaces for your perusal - if you've accumulated the desired Honor Points, that is.

Alternatively, there's also The Armory database and finding info on its search system should only be a few button clicks away. The World of Warcraft site's rewards page should be available in the read link provided below.

  

While killing Illidan in Blizzard's World of Warcraft is pretty common these days among elite guilds, finding new drops is still pretty rare. Illidan was recently taken down by Bad Omen and he coughed up the Cursed Vision of Sargeras and Shroud of the Highborne. 

These two items are pretty sweet with the Cursed Vision of Sargeras (leather head gear) providing 385 Armor, +39 Agility, and +46 Stamina. It also has a socket Bonus of +6 Stamina. Equipping it improves hit rating by 21 and critical strike rating by 38, and also increases attack power by 108. It has a level 70 requirement, which means that you won't be seeing this on twinks. This is one of the most impressive head gear I've seen in some time, and it also looks way cool when equipped.
 
The Shroud of the Highbourne is perfect for healers both in a raid or PvP setting. It provides a decent 126 Armor, +24 Stamina, and +23 Intellect. Equipping the Shroud increases spell haste rating by 32 and increases healing done by spells and effects by up to 68. I can just imagine a Paladin wearing this and keeping his party alive for a very, very long time.

That said, I'd like to extend our congratulations to Bad Omen on their new acquisitions. I'd like to throw out a question to the readers of our WoW blog, has anyone ever seen a character who's equipped with nothing but Illidan dropped gear? If there is, post it below so I can check it out in the Armory.

 

If you're a World of Warcraft player, you're probably one of the dissatisfied users of The Armory. Amoeba from the WoW Forums complained that the Armory pages take too much time loading, making a cursory check more of a chore.

Blizzard poster Nethaera dropped by the thread and explained:

... the Armory is still a work in progress and considered still in beta. By knowing what issues are prevalent in its use, it helps the web team track them down and hopefully get them resolved. It's important to be very clear about what issues people are having and what possible things could be causing them. We are most definitely continuing to collect feedback on the performance of the Armory as well as the features that people would like to see in the future so please feel free to do so.

Let's hope that when they get to releasing the final version of the Armory, the pages load faster. And we can probably expect smooth sailing from there. The best thing to do right now is give feedback (constructive) on any problems you might experience whilst checking out somebody's main toon or gear.