World of Warcraft

While I’ve come across plenty of complaints about Alterac Valley and how the glory days used to be awesome are plentiful, but it doesn’t appear that Blizzard agrees, as a recent Blizzard CM stated that they are generally satisfied with AV in its current form:

This is partially true. Alterac Valley was originally going to be its own zone. We do feel Alterac Valley is fairly well tuned at the moment, though we would like to give players a different type of experience that will include large-scale PvP battles, destructible buildings, siege weapons, and more. These are some of the things planned for the new PvP zone Lake Wintergrasp.

There will be a lot of tuning and balancing of the zone done in the coming months. One thing we are looking to do though to help with population imbalances is impose certain benefits for the side with less players in the zone. For instance, since supplies will be necessary to unlock certain vehicles, the side with the population handicap may see a decrease in requirements. We may also offer increasingly more supply benefits for a faction if they are suffering from consecutive losses in Lake Wintergrasp. The goal is to even the playing field regardless of faction population balances across all realms.

We plan to give Lake Wintergrasp a definitive play time where the event may last somewhere around 45 minutes. The event would not start again for a set amount of time after the battle is won. We will tune these times as testing further develops. The plan, additionally, is to provide certain incentives for visiting this zone between battles.

We’ll be sure to provide more information about Lake Wintergrasp as well as the new Battleground as we get closer to releasing them for Beta testing.

Personally yes, I did genuinely enjoy the old epic Alterac battles that took days on old to complete, but there were some serious flaws with the system at that time. First, it took 2 hours just to get in, because players tended to never leave after they finally got to enter (at 2 hours a shot, no kidding). With the recent bout of afking, you’d likely see a huge increase in AV queue times, and your team could be half afkers as active players left only to be replaced by a botter looking to get days worth of honor for free. I like AV as it stands, even though it could definitely use some tweaking (let us summon lords and cavalry, I mean come on!). Additionally I think Lake Wintergrasp is really intended to be what AV used to be, and if that’s the case I think its perfectly fine to leave AV for the honor grubbers and people who actually want an epic fight can go to the lake and get it!

Since the release of the Burning Crusade, engineering has gone through some serious changes. You won’t see any engineers pulling out dragonlings, a battle chicken, or a deathray/shrink ray. Instead you’ll likely see….goggles. Maybe a mote extractor too. As a whole, much of what made the professions quirky and fun (and got people mad at you.. “who the hell just shrunk our group?!…YOU!”) was the trinkets and various gadgets that engineers had at their disposal. Unfortunately much of the craft was homogenized and dumbed down. Old gadgets no longer worked (reflector trinkets), but new ones were not added in to continue the fun. Instead trinket pets were relegated to jewelcrafting, and patch after patch yielded few new engineering changes other than a new mount and a new goggle recipe that, frankly, most players will never get or hope to get.

With this in mind, many players have turned their hopes toward the expansion. After all what’s a better time to re-vamp a profession than a HUGE content patch like Wrath of the Lich King? I’ve heard rumors of a motorcycle mount, but beyond that it doesn’t seem anything substantial has been added yet. One of Blizzard’s CMs, Bornak, did recently respond to concerns about the engineering profession in the expansion:

We have heard and noted some complaints from engineers in the past. Please be patient and more details will be available soon on all the professions and new things they will have in Wrath of the Lich King.

Hmm, well its not exactly a guarantee, but at the very least the engineers’ concerns have been heard. If this is the case, then expect to see some more fun when the expansion hits! Or goggles…one or the other.

Well it appears that Blizzard has no shortage of merchandise to peddle onto its playerbase. From t-shirts to character models to the trading card game, they most recently announced the addition of a board game version of Warcraft. That said, I’ve played similar games in the genre (A Lord of the Rings board game was a ton of fun, for example), and they can be a total blast! Here’s a brief description from the site:

World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game is a fast-paced game of danger, conflict, and heroes. 2-4 players engage in a struggle for glory and valor as they travel the East Kingdoms of Azeroth battling monsters, completing quests, and vanquishing each other in their bid for supremacy!

* Fast paced immersive action with four unique heroes
* Battle monsters as well as your fellow players
* Innovative game design with multi-tier encounters and quest

You’ll have to compete with up to 4 opponents for glory and treasure as you stomp across Azeroth. You have the option of playing a dwarf hunter, human warlock, undead mage, or orc warrior. Given the fact that each has their own unique abilities, I wonder if there will be some arguments as to who gets to play the “overpowered” class (oh right, you WOULD pick the warlock!).

Essentially, your turn will go like this. You’ll flip over some cards to see how far you can move, and you’ll have the option of playing cards to mess with your opponents or move a bit farther as you go along. Then you’ll get to fight a monster through an encounter, depending on your level, you can fight mobs of various difficulties. If you win, you get your very own treasure or some other reward. Quests will also be available to you, and completing them will award you “valor points.” The first person to 8 valor points wins the game.

If you happen to have a bunch of buddies who are into this sort of thing, then you might want to take a look. If any of you guys do pick it up, feel free to let me know how the game plays and whether it has a good amount of replayability. I’ll post any interesting feedback I receive on the game!

If you’ve been around long enough, you probably know that before the last expansion, Burning Crusade, was released, Blizzard put the new talents into the game for players to toy around with and test. My guess is they were doing some final testing and tweaking to see how these talents fared on a large scale basis and in raid situations. Many players have wondered (and weighed in on both sides) if we’ll be seeing the new talents again in the expansion. Blizzard did come out with somewhat of an answer..if you want to call it that..from a CM post on the forums:

“We haven’t stated this as of yet, so it wasn’t me. I have said that it is a possibility much like Burning Crusade, but I can’t confirm this for you at this time. When the time comes, we’ll be letting everyone know more details about our plans.”

Blech. I don’t know about you, but I want to know for sure! There’s a surprising amount of resistance to Blizzard releasing them early, though. Some players worry that talents designed for level 80 play will seem overpowered at 70 because there hasn’t been an increase in health and other stats. Retribution paladins in particular, an apparently very powerful class in the expansion, worry that their abilities will be needlessly nerfed because they are overpowered at 70 but will balance nicely at 80. Personally I say let us have them! I’d like to take some of my mage’s new arcane talents for a spin (arcane barrage!) and see if they hold up well in comparison.

The WoW Insider show recently announced that they’ll be giving away a beta key tomorrow to one listener. Here’s the summary from the post:

“Yes, not only is the WoW Insider Show going live again tomorrow afternoon as usual, and not only will I be making a return to the airwaves (after being stuck in LAX during last week’s show), but Turpster is going to make the ultimate sacrifice and give away a beta key from the Worldwide Invitational to one lucky listener. How can you win this treasured set of letters and numbers? By listening to the show, of course — tune in tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern over on WoW Radio, and we’ll let you know how we’re giving away the key.

*Note: We’ll talk about this on the show I’m sure, but please note that we’re giving you a beta key, not access to the beta — it’s up to Blizzard to actually let you in. And we’re giving you a WWI key, which means it’s for EU players only — the key won’t let you enter the beta on US realms. Sorry US players, but all of our other contests are for you, so karma evens out.”

I don’t know about you, but as a US player myself I got all excited and then got down to the note…clever! I’ll likely be listening anyway though.

I present exhibit A.

Having a mage myself but rarely, if ever, speccing fire (I prefer arcane, if you can believe that), I hadn’t given much thought to the new fire talents other than “I guess that’s kinda sorta interesting.” The more I hear about living bomb, however, the more I feel its in need of tweaking. Let’s be honest here, that doesn’t really look like a living bomb, more like…living butane lighter. It just doesn’t do much damage, and the fact that it lights you up like a Christmas tree pretty much guarantees that even if it was useful, it’ll get dispelled in no time flat.

Improvement suggestions? I like the concept, so I’m not going to say they should scrap it and come out with a new talent, but it definitely needs to be improved. I think a knockback effect would have some use, but it needs more damage. Also, it should detonate upon being dispelled. This would keep a use and purpose in pvp other than an instant “DISPEL ME” buff. It would also make dispel classes think twice about dispelling it if its a devastating enough effect.

Obviously its still early on in the beta to make firm judgments on anything. However, if the past is any indication, unless there’s an outcry for change before the talent is locked in place (lightwell, anyone?) Blizzard tends to be slow in improving talents, especially ones that would be more difficult to balance. I do hope they find a way to make living bomb live up to its name!

While WoWhead has had a beta talent tree tool for Wrath of the Lich King up for some time now, Blizzard has finally added an official tool of their own! You can find the whole slew of available talents here. Of course these aren’t exactly official since its in beta and serious changes to talents are inevitable, but it certainly gives you an idea of what’s in store for your class when the expansion hits.

Initial impressions are varied for me. On one hand there are some great talents. For my mage, I’m definitely looking forward to arcane barrage, but deep freeze really looks night on worthless except for a select few pvp situations due to the requirement that the target be frozen. Paladins are getting a much needed AOE heal for raiding and 5-man situations, a great development for them, I believe, even if it is a heal over time. This will allow them to combat situations where the group takes consistent damage to multiple party members (such as the fight with Kael’thas in Magister’s Terrace). Typhoon for balance druids looks particularly devastating in pvp, especially small combat situations like the arena. My warlock should be getting a number of new tricks too, and haunt looks interesting to say the least. There’s a pretty large number of knockback spells in the works, and I wonder how that will affect pvp. I don’t really feel like getting tossed into oblivion every time I cross a bridge or narrow passageway, but we’ll see how it all balanced out.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the talents and any changes that come down the line, until then be sure to check them out and start putting up your talent builds once the expansion hits!

Well I’ve returned from the sunny beaches of Emerald Isle, North Carolina, and I’m happy to be back. I returned to see the latest development in Wrath of the Lich King, the achievements system, and figured I’d throw my hat in the ring. If you’re curious you can read the nitty gritty right here.

At first I wasn’t even sure if this should be added as an additional feature. After all, titles are currently in game that signify player achievements through raiding, the old pvp system, or even reputation with Shattered Sun Offensive. Obviously, they are taking achievements to the next level though, adding in hundreds of achievements you’ll be able to unlock through a wide variety of means:

“World of Warcraft’s achievements system will launch with more than 500 individual achievements covering every aspect of gameplay, including world exploration, PvE, PvP, professions, and character development; from the purely whimsical to the truly epic, there will be something for everyone. Some achievements come with in-game rewards such as tabards, vanity pets, and titles. All of these rewards are purely cosmetic and just for fun, but you’ll certainly stand out when you proudly display them.”

I think its an interesting way to add variation and uniqueness to player characters without actually making them more powerful. Many lament that Warcraft doesn’t provide an alternate advancement system, much like Everquest did in its day, but don’t take into account the consequences that would bring about. Unlike Everquest, player versus player combat is an integral part of the game, and allowing people to “level” skills past the cap would mean that players who play the most would have even more of an edge over the average player than they already do with better gear. Achievements may not be the most groundbreaking thing Blizzard’s ever done, but I’m happy to see it and I hope there are some vanity pets to go along with it.

As the expansion inches closer to release (with Beta just recently opening, its going to be a long haul!), many Community Managers are taking some time to address current issues. While some are more insightful than others, it helps give a feel for what the developers are thinking and whether they plant o make any changes in gameplay from now until Wrath of the Lich King is released:

On Flying Mounts and PvP by Nethaera:

“I never quite get the running away part right. I keep staying and fighting. I also don’t /spit.

I rarely care for statements that act as if they are fact. You personally may feel that they have ruined your PvP, but others may not feel the same, so what you are stating is opinion (which you’re completely welcome to have and express.) For me, it’s just another aspect that allows for additional strategies to be utilized whether it’s avoiding a fight or getting into a fight much quicker.”

On Blizzcon Tickets, by Nethaera:

“We’ll let you know as soon as they go on sale. Sorry, but I don’t have an ETA for you on this as of yet, however.”

On The Scourge Invasion World Event, by Nethaera:

” Currently we’re focused on developing future events so the Scourge Invasion is a bit on the backburner though it may very well be back again at some point in the future.”

Its a real pity that they aren’t doing more with the scourge invasion. I really enjoyed the event and seeing as many holidays/festivals have been fleshed out quite a bit since their initial release, I figured the scourge event would get a similar make over, but it doesn’t appear to be the case. perhaps after the expansion they’ll revisit the idea, since that would be particularly appropriate for Northrend.

In an effort to continue to improve their beta testing abilities, Blizzard’s new program to test their latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, involves having to opt in to the Beta rather than being randomly selected. Here’s a full summary below:

“Today we opened the Wrath of the Lich King Beta Opt-In program, which gives players a chance to win an invitation to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King beta. For The Burning Crusade beta, we randomly invited players from the entire World of Warcraft community. With the Opt-In, our goal is to strengthen the beta-testing process by inviting only those players who have expressed active interest in participating.

Keep in mind that opting in doesn’t guarantee you’ll be selected for the beta. And players who’ve previously been promised beta access through a promotion or contest (such as by purchasing the Dell XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition notebook) don’t need to worry — you’ll still be entered into the beta automatically when the time comes.”

This means that in order to test out the Beta, you’ll need to head over (right now!) and sign up via the link provided. I expected a flashy page with a bunch of WOTLK doodads and imagery, but instead the process is very straightforward. Just follow the link, login, and voila, you’re in. Of course this doesn’t mean you’re in the Beta, just that you are eligible if Blizzard decides you are worthy. Make sure you get the following message to confirm your acceptance:

“You have successfully opted in for a chance to participate in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. In the event that your account is selected, you will be sent an email with further instructions. Good luck!”

Good luck, indeed.
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We’ve always wondered what’s going in certain places of the world where Blizzard has created the potential for content but hasn’t fleshed everything out yet. Think about the Caverns of Time before the expansion was released. I mean it was a giant cave guarded by dragons and a previously oddly named door (doodle.something if I recall). Curiosity has often driven players to try and get to places they weren’t suppose to, there’s just something alluring about the mischief and fun of being in a “forbidden” zone. From Ironforge’s airport, to the unused dungeon near Karazahn, players want to explore.

Blizzard has had to put up a variety of artificial barriers to prevent players from doing just that. They’ve employed fatigue, which exhausts even your dead character to death. Guardians, which were super-powered mobs that would kill anyone trying to enter a forbidden area. Also they’ve simply eliminated the means, such as when they took away wall jumping in a recent patch.

Not all of these places will remain unsed though, according to a recent statement by a Blizzard CM:

“There are several areas in Azeroth that have yet to be completed. This is not to say that we never intend on revisiting some of these places. It’s all a matter of timing and finding a way to fit in some of our older ideas with some of our upcoming content.

For instance, the Stormwind Harbor makes sense now to provide the Alliance quick access to Northrend beyond flying to Menethil Harbor. Just the same we’re opening the Orgrimmar Arena to put it to good use for some new challenges in Wrath of the Lich King.

You may well see other areas in Azeroth of which we’ve yet to make use come to life some day.”

I sure hope so. I want to know what the heck is going on in Uldum, and I want to take off from Ironforge’s airport! I want to explore the lower levels of Karazahn, and fight the denizens that may inhabit them. I can only hope that we’ll be getting some more details, if they decide to go that direction. At the very least it looks like we’re going to get access to Stormwind Harbor and Orgrimmar Arena, which should be a fun experience!

If you’re like me, the prospect of leveling a brand new character can be somewhat daunting. After all there’s a lot of time and effort that goes into bringing your newly formed character up through the ranks into a full fledged level 70 hero. At times it seems like it may not even be worth it drag on toward end-game. Fear not, friends, below are some interface addons that can help you level your character faster and more efficiently..here we go!

There’s undoubtedly more addons available, but those are two of my particular favorites and help ease the sometime tedious nature of getting your latest alt to 70. Some say that this takes away from the adventurous nature of questing, running from place to place without any real direction. I believe there’s something to be said for this, but after the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time through, you probably aren’t really doing the quests for questing sake, but would like to get your character up to snuff. Good luck!