World of Warcraft

While I won’t have the luxury of attending myself, Blizzcon has always sounded like a fun filled event for enthusiastic MMO gamers, and I’d love to have the chance to go one of these days. Blizzcon may be sold out, but you’ll still have the opportunity to win tickets to go! Blizzard is running a contest for all current account owners, with a few catches for eligibility:

“To be eligible for the BlizzCon ticket drawing, you must (1) have an active Blizzard Account that was created on or before 9:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, August 12, 2008, when we first announced BlizzCon 2008 tickets had sold out; (2) be an adult in your country of residence; (3) have not previously purchased BlizzCon 2008 tickets; and (4) live in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, or South Korea.”

I can’t imagine someone creating an account for the sole purpose of trying to win tickets, but I suppose stranger things have happened. Be sure to follow all of the instructions on the main contest page here. If you don’t win the contest or you’re still unable to go, not to worry, another option is available to you. DirectTV will actually be hosting the invest on PayperView live, with hours of commentary and panel discussion from the event. Catching in the tube won’t exactly come cheap though, it’ll cost you $39.95 to view the event from the comfort of your living room. I suppose its not all that expensive considering its 16 hours of high definition footage, but its a little rich for my blood. Perhaps I’ll catch the recaps out there instead.
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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.

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!

Well in typical Blizzard fashion, it looks like the ice-themed splash page was not in fact anything related to Warcraft or, as some expected, Wrath of the Lich King. I had assumed as much, as speculation about a release date would inevitably lead to a huge amount of disappointment to fans expected some serious news, especially given that Blizzard makes *ahem* their release dates very…flexible.

Instead we did in fact get a pretty important announcement. I’ve been a big fan of the Diablo series, and there appears to be pretty wide ranging support for the game, even in the typically venom-ridden forums. The game’s site has an impressive amount of fluff for a game still in relatively early development, and you can check out the slew of information here.

As per the usual, things never seem to go right in Diablo’s world. Once again the denizens of hell rise up to terrorize the world’s inhabitants, and those that rose up to defend them, such as the notable Barbarian class of the 2nd game, have had their home destroyed, and now apparently roam the world without hope or reason. If you’re a big fan of dark storylines, I’d definitely check it out!

If you’ve visited Warcraft’s home page in the last few days, you’ve probably noticed the new prominent splash page featuring a rather cryptic image of ice slowly cracking away. Speculation abounds as to what the page actually means or what it portents for the near future. Here are some ideas from the forums, some of which are pretty comical (I’m pretty sure that a splash page thread gets created every few minutes).

“Has anyone considered that the splash screen could just an announcement that WotLK beta is open?”

“If you’ll look very closely near the bottom of the picture you see a nose. Now obviously any picture of baal in lore or outside of the game that nose looks exactly or at least VERY similar to Baal’s nose indefinitely. ”

“You play as a law enforcement officer who has to get drugs off the streets. Notice how over time, the ice has been disappearing? Well, that is the aim of the game: to get rid of the ice.”

“The big announcement is a collaboration between Lucas Arts and Blizzard. Together the twin headed monster of sci-fi and fantasy will finally be melded in a new project.”

“All of you people screaming about it being Diablo 3, or new Starcraft 2 information, or Starcraft 3, or a Starcraft MMO, or Warcraft 4, are all wrong. It’s a message about global warming. They want you to stop global warming or else their servers will melt and WoW will shut down.”

What about you guys? Have any thoughts? Ideas?

I’m sure you’ve been just as frustrated when it happens. There you are, happily waiting for the queue to pop up, and there it is! You quickly enter your Arathi Basin, buff yourself up and…realize you’re one of 3 people there. The clock is ticking, and you watch anxiously as the opposing side fills up to full, while you start the round with 5 people. Desperately trying to cling to your last node hoping for reinforcements in time, you get rolled by 15-5 odds, and the game ends within a minute.

Ugh.

Blizzard isn’t ignoring our plight, per se. From the sound of it, they’re not happy with the way the system currently works, either. Here’s what Zarhym, a Blizzard CM, had to say about it:

” The fact of the matter is that the queue system has been altered over the years since the implementation of Battlegrounds to be the most convenient to the most players with regards to selecting one’s preferred Battleground, as well as the amount of time one must wait before entering a match.

An equal number of players from each faction at the top of the respective queues are selected at the launch of the Battleground. Each player selected is given a grace period to enter the match before they are automatically removed from the queue. The issue you’re describing is a result of players not entering the match when selected, and not leaving the queue before this grace period ends. By the time new players from the top of the queue are offered the chance to join the match, it has already begun. Most of you understand this; I only mention this to acknowledge the primary cause of the situation discussed in this thread.

It can be very demoralizing when one team is forced to begin a battle with less members than the opposing team. I’ve been there and experienced that first-hand many times over.

There are inherent issues with both leaving the queue system as it is, and imposing further requirements before a match begins. For instance, if we keep the match from starting until each side has an equal number of players, everyone is forced to wait beyond the actual queue time to ensure enough players have accepted to enter the match.

The choice may well be between suspending a match indefinitely until both teams have the same number of players; and starting a match lopsided so players can get through the match and carry on with their gaming. I suspect not everyone would have the same preference given this choice, and the difference could greatly impact the style, reason, and enjoyment of the Battlegrounds for many.

That said, we aren’t completely satisfied with the queue system as it stands.”

So what it boils down is that they WANT to fix it, but they don’t want to fix it by breaking something else. Seems fair, eh?

I love reading new tidbits about the expansion. Collecting and piecing together what to expect once WOTLK hits has been a fun exercise in patience, considering Blizzard’s rather slow stream of info pouring out. The latest is an addition to the monsters and races we’ll see in Northrend, the Magnataur. These huge, hulking creatures are essentially like the hulk version of centaurs, combining the top half of a giant with the bottom half of a mammoth, as per the above.

My first impression was “eh.” After all, does it really take that much creative ability to fuse together a larger centaur? But after reading the background for these beasts and their symbiotic relationship with arctic kobolds they’ve really piqued my interest. First impressions aren’t all that and a bag of chips, as it turns out.

Here’s a nice summary from the Beastiary page:

“Magnataur have the torso of a giant attached to the body of a mammoth. This peculiar appearance has sparked speculation that their race might be related to centaur or even Keepers of the Grove. Many wonder if these races share a common ancestor, and some have even suggested Cenarius himself.

The notoriously long-lived magnataur are rumored to engage in cannibalism during times when food is scarce. Single males are known to control giant herds and produce sizable litters, but in the frigid, perilous wastes at the roof of the world, only the strongest and meanest survive.

Despite their hostility to most races, the magnataur have become tolerant of the arctic kobolds, who follow the herds for safety and mutual benefit during long hunts. Although the redoubtable magnataur lead solitary lives, adventurers who cross paths with them quickly learn that it would have been wiser to stay at a safe distance.”

Bring it on!

If you’ve played Warcraft for any length of time, its likely your somewhat familiar with interface addons. If you’ve ever thought of creating your very own addon, but didn’t know where to start, you may be able to win a book that will serve as a nice springboard for free!

The makers of Allakhazam, Wowhead, and Thottbot are starting up a raffle for World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons, written by James Whitehead II and Bryan McLemore. Not to worry, the book is actually very straightforward and geared toward those with little knowledge of programming, but with enough grit to entice intermediate users as well! Besides…it’s FREE!

The book typically sells for $39.99, so you’re not looking at some worthless text you can pick up for a song. Besides, if you’re like me, you’ve at least given the idea of programming your own interface some thought. It’s a learned skill that takes a good bit of time, but I’m sure it could be fun once you got the hang of it, right?! Not exactly sure what I’d like to create first…WOWInsider had a great suggestion of building a Hello Kitty Island Adventure interface..and that would be full of win. I’d definitely go with something gnome related, perhaps an engineering-themed interface? With robotic chickens stomping across the screen and occasionally the UI will explode, or perhaps an automated alarm that goes off when you’re about to waffleface…the possibilities are ENDLESS!

If you’re interested, head on over to wow interface and just sign up with a valid e-mail address (this is free as well of course!). The raffle will be drawn from the list of members. Good luck everyone!

/rush over to sign up

It may be time for you to update to the latest version of Adobe Flash, a program utilized heavily on Blizzard’s site and a potential chink in your armor. Apparently there’s a vulnerability in the program that could allow your account to be compromised..and we don’t want that, do we?!

Here’s the official note from Blizzard’s home page:

“A recent vulnerability has been discovered in popular web-content delivery program Adobe Flash, and it could potentially be used to target World of Warcraft players and accounts. The newest available version of Adobe Flash, version 9.0.124.0, does not contain this vulnerability, and we recommend that everyone upgrade their Flash player as soon as possible by visiting the Adobe.com download page at the link below.

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/

In addition, to avoid exploitation of this vulnerability, we have temporarily disabled the ability to post hyperlinks in our forums. Any links will need to be copied and pasted into a browser. We’ll continue to evaluate any potential security threats and take any steps necessary to ensure a safe and fun environment.”

I always wonder how these vulnerabilities are exposed. I mean is some guy happily plugging away at his flash design when POOF, he suddenly realizes he’s found a hole in the program and he can now steal away everyone’s warcraft account information! Maybe…

Quite a number of players are foaming at the mouth to receive the latest information on the expansion’s hero class: The Death Knight. We’ve seen tidbits here and there that give examples of the class’s abilities, but nothing of too much substance. Well wait no longer, some of the mechanics and spells of the death knight have now been officially released.

So how will our fallen heroes play out? It appears that they’ll be a hybrid similar to a paladin, though more offensively oriented. They’ll be able to wear plate, have a tree dedicated to tanking, raid dps, and a more pvp-focused damage tree as well. This is broken down into 3 schools:

* Blood: Talents in this tree focus on damage-dealing abilities. Blood Presence increases damage output by a percentage.
* Frost: Talents in this tree focus on tanking abilities. Frost Presence increases threat and lowers damage taken by a percentage.
* Unholy: Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons, diseases, and PvP-focused abilities. Unholy Presence increases attack speed and reduces the global cooldown on death knight abilities.

Death knights will also have the ability to utilize runes in these trees as well. They gather up runic power for various spells and abilities that they will unleash upon their enemies (some are said to consume all of a death knight’s runic power).

In addition we have some spell details available:

* Raise Dead: The death knight can raise a ghoul companion from the corpses of fallen creatures, as well as those of both friendly and enemy players. If cast on a friendly player, that player will have the opportunity to actually play as the ghoul, controlling its movements and actions.
* Army of the Dead: This channeled spell raises a group of undead followers who will attack the death knight’s enemies but only exist very briefly before disintegrating.
* Summon Deathcharger: Every death knight can summon the level-40 version of a deathcharger land mount. At higher levels, they can complete a quest to learn the epic version.

Everyone with a level 55 character or above will be able to create a death knight of ANY race. I’m not sure if I’ll play one myself, as they are bound to be quite numerous when the expansion hits. A free level 55 with a mount does sound rather tempting, though…

Here we are again, marveling at the sheer number of subscribers this MMO has managed to snatch up. Most were arguing that the game was hitting a peak at 10 million subscribers, but it appears that WoW just keeps marching on. According to a recent posting over at Businesswire, we are fast approaching 11 million subscribers:

“Vivendi Games maintains strong momentum: adding 2 million incremental World of Warcraft subscribers compared to March 2007, including more than 700,000 new players added in the first quarter of 2008. Pending acquisition of Activision to create Activision Blizzard, global leader of video games independent publishers.”

Over at the forums this is met with some pretty silly criticisms. One is that the majority of the subscribers are in Asia, and therefor somehow count less than a North American subscription…I don’t really get the argument there. Blizzard hopes to continue to expand the game’s playerbase, and I doubt they much care which part of the world those players come from. Others like to argue that the numbers are somehow flawed, that they are either fabricated, tallied incorrectly, or don’t take into account things like players who are on the “verge” of quitting.

Which brings to me to my next point…if you don’t like this game, by all means quit. If you feel like everything you do is a boring grind and you’re not having fun, just go ahead and cancel your account. There is a TON of other stuff to do, and really Warcraft should be a hobby at best, so replacing it shouldn’t be a huge deal, either. Don’t invest too much of yourself into a game, especially to the point where you’re a bitter, angry individual who’s only pleasure is to shoot down statistics of a game you hate but still play. All things in moderation, mmkay?

Blizzard’s recent outpouring of expansion information continues today with a preview of a new area: The Nexus. Aside from the cool name, there’s actually some fascinating lore that accompanies this as well. Here’s a quick summary:

“Determined to forestall a catastrophe, Malygos decreed that the world’s unbridled magic must be reined in by any means necessary. And so the great Aspect turned to the Arcanomicon, a map of the world’s ley lines. Gifted to Malygos ages ago by the titan Norgannon, the Arcanomicon has been continuously updated and revised by the blue dragons over the long years of Malygos’s seclusion.

Now Malygos uses the Arcanomicon to locate and tap into the ley lines, diverting the magical powers that course beneath the earth to his home base in Northrend, the Nexus. Once harnessed, the energies are focused through the Nexus’ ascending rings and blasted into the Twisting Nether. Malygos’s redirection of the ley lines has carried disastrous consequences, however, splintering the world’s crust and opening unstable rifts: tears in the very fabric of the magical dimension. ”

Needless to say as magic-using mortals, we’re not exactly pleased that Malygos decided to get rid of all the magic, so it’s likely we’ll have to go and “neutralize” him. Teaming up with the red dragonflight, Dalaran has been moved to float above Northrend. There are, of course, other mortal magic-users that have joined Malygos, and you’ll have to contend with them as well.

I’ve heard some good reviews so far from my fellow players, what do you guys think (You can find the full Nexus page here)?

I’ll be honest, before I read this quote from a recent interview with Blizzard employee Tom Chilton, I didn’t even know what a legacy item meant. After doing a little bit of research however, it turns out that legacy items are awarded to players depending on how long they’ve been playing. In the past Blizzard stated that they wanted everyone to have an opportunity to get items, and awarding players simply because they’ve been here the longest would disadvantage newer players who are trying to get into the groove of the game themselves. It appears they may have reversed their position on this, as the quote below demonstrates:

“Legacy Items; we haven’t really talked about those in the past. We are planning to do certain types of items that essentially bind to your account, so they’re deliberately created as twink items. So you might be able to find one of these items when you’re doing an endgame instance, or a raid, or something like that, and you might get an item that binds to your account and then hand that off to your other characters, but it does have to stay within your account. So you can be deliberately overpowered for a low level character to help level up or whatever.”

On one hand I tend to go against the grain on this sorta thing. I remember Ultima Online had item rewards for players who had been playing the longest, but by and large these were simply cosmetic awards. A “purposely” overpowered weapon for a low level character does have serious implications for those participating in the battlegrounds at that level. However there is something to be said for the ability to level faster thanks to a legacy item. Let’s face it, leveling a brand new character from 1-80 is going to be a long..daunting..potentially boring process. If legacy items could help cut down the amount of time required to bring up a new toon…should we really be opposed to it? I think Blizzard’s best bet here is to let them serve their intended purpose: to help you level faster. Don’t allow players to participate in low-level Battlegrounds with these. It’s bad enough as-is.