Project Lore

It's the time of year again, boys and girls. As Hallow's End approaches, everyone is gearing up to slay the Headless Horseman and gorge themselves on Tricky Treats, but it might be worth your while to celebrate the holiday's real-life equivalent, too. Each year, Blizzard hosts a pumpkin carving contest, and 2009 is no exception. They're looking for some talented gourdsmiths to artfully slice up these over-sized fruits to depict characters or scenes from at least one of the company's video game franchises. Zarhym details the rules below:

"The Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth is renewing its competition in celebration of Halloween. In a longstanding Blizzard Entertainment tradition, this year we're proud to announce our seventh annual pumpkin-carving contest. 2008's Winner, an exquisitely-crafted Horde pumpkin by Merrlynch Between 12:00 a.m. PDT on October 13 and 11:59 p.m. PDT on October 28, the RPSA will be accepting submissions for the pumpkin contest. The shutterbugs who submit the most outstanding photos of their work will have their pictures proudly displayed on WorldofWarcraft.com and Blizzard.com on Halloween. In addition, the crafters of the five most interesting, original, and well-carved pumpkin designs will each be recognized for their merits with a 32 GB iPod touch! Special thanks go out to Apple for this fantastic prize! Pumpkin submission tips:

• The winning entries will display high levels of originality, craftsmanship, and possibly humor.
• Your pumpkin must be lit up by a candle or other light source in your photo entry. You can show another photo of the pumpkin unlit if you wish.
• Pumpkins must be related to World of Warcraft or another Blizzard Entertainment title.
• Try to take the best picture possible, as picture quality helps make a good impression on the judges.
• Make sure you tell us what the pumpkin is supposed to be in the caption, just in case it's not clear."

Having big, meaty fingers like my own, and the carving skills of a back-alley surgeon, I don't think I'll be participating, myself. Every jack-o-lantern I try to make looks like Gary Busey after a motorcycle crash. And, besides, some of the winners from past years are intimidatingly well-made! But if you think you've got the chops, why not try your hand at it? Even if you don't win, you'll still have a bad-ass looking pumpkin to put on your doorstep. Full rules and a submission form can be found here.

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I just picked up a new iPhone 3GS, and I must say I am really enjoying it. I've used a few WoW applications on it that aren't very good, but now Blizzard has released their second official application - the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Once you login using your Battle.net credentials, you can access all of the armory in a very slick interface. You can see your gear, achievements, stats, and pretty much anything else that you could see in the full version of the Armory. In fact, it seems a lot faster than the web version of the Armory (even over 3G), and the interface is a lot easier to use. The home screen allows you to choose from your characters or bookmarked characters. You can quickly switch between them with a beautiful "page-flip" animation. Searching allows you to quickly find characters, items, guilds, or arena teams to view. The item view is wonderful and detailed showing where items can be obtained, their full stats and description, as well as disenchanting data. There appear to be notifications with the calendar feature, which could end up being extremely useful. I've been trying to find an easy way to get my armory calendar in Google, and having my iPhone let me know when its time to raid solves the problems entirely. Other features include a leaderboard for achievement points among your characters and bookmarked characters or guild, talent calculators, and armory news directly in the application. This replaces all of the other WoW applications I've been using and it does a much better job. Check it out at the official armory site! What do you think? Will this replace your alt-tabbing to evaluate players in-game, and do you really need the Armory on your phone?

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Edit: Direct Link to Battle.net Mobile Authenticator on iTunes App Store WoWInsider is reporting that the rumored iPhone Authenticator App is now available for free download on the App Store. I quickly grabbed my iPhone and did a quick search for "Blizzard" on the App store and a scrolled towards the bottom, revealing that it was indeed available for no charge! iPhone users will have to convert their WoW accounts to Battle.net in order to take advantage, but the App is a great alternative for those who haven't been able to find the $6.50 Authenticators due to the constant Sold Out status on the Blizzard store. This should also help relieve some of those supply issues as most users who have the ability will likely choose to use the iPhone over an extra device to carry. The description of the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator on the iPhone App Store is:

Do you play World of Warcraft using a Battle.net account? Protect the account with the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator for you iPhone, an optional tool that offers an additional layer of security to help prevent unauthorized account access. The Battle.net Mobile Authenticator gives you the security of two-factor authentication. Each time you log in to a Battle.net account, you'll use the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator to generate a unique one-time use password to use in addition to your regular password. Log in with both and you can rest easy knowing that the account is more secure against unauthorized access.

Now, since installing the program, I haven't been able to find it again on the App Store. Also, many users seem to be having problems finding it in other regions like the UK and Canada. Anyone out there able to get the App installed on your iPhone or iPod Touch? For now, I'll hang on to my key fob, but I may soon be able to get rid of it since I'll always have my phone on me. Of course, that also means I'll have to keep the iPhone charged.

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