World of Warcraft

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!

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?

It’s that time of year again! Season 4 in the arena has officially begun, as well as the midsummer fire festival. There are a lot of new additions to the festival this year, which really blows last summer’s tame by comparison rewards and quests. You’ll find a new summonable boss in the Slave Pens, Frost Lord Ahune. This unique boss is similar to the headless horseman and will only be available for a short time. I’ve heard he’s a bit of a pain to bring down, but he drops a pretty sick scythe as well as a noncombat scorchling pet, which has riled up all the pet collectors out there. You’ll also find some more benign fun quests, such as torch tossing. You can read the whole writeup at Blizzard’s site here.

The addition of Season 4 arena gear also means that season 2 is now available via honor gear. I much prefer the battlegrounds myself over arena, so this is indeed great news! They’ll also be doling out end of season rewards as per the quote below:

“The team and personal rating have simply been reset to the default 1500, allowing all teams to once again compete for top honors with a fresh start. Also, with the end of the third season, players on the top teams from each battlegroup will be receiving their end-of-season rewards approximately one week from today. These include Arena-specific titles that they can display proudly until the end of the new season, and, for the best of the best, an Armored Nether Drake.”

Best get in there and earn some new gear!

2.4.3 is on the horizon and there are some interesting changes in the works. I’m really excited about the removal of curse of shadow, which will be lumped into curse of elements. This makes it a one-curse-fits-all spell and mages will no longer get mad at us for curse of shadow when they really want elements…

As for the rest? Read for yourself!

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.3

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

General

* Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
* Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low-level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.
* Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World’s End Tavern!
* Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
* Blood Elf flightmasters outside of Silvermoon City and Tranquillien have traded in their bats for glorious fire-breathing dragonhawks.
* Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown.
* Numerous flying non-combat pets have had their flight height modified to no longer skim along the ground: captured firefly, dragonhawk hatchlings, moths, owls, parrots, phoenix hatchling, spirit of summer, sprite darter, and tiny sporebat.
* Nether Ray Fry (a non-combat pet) is now available from the Skyguard Quartermaster. This requires an Exalted reputation with Sha’tari Skyguard.
* Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.
* Placing an item in your bank will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress if the spell was cast by that item.
* You can no longer move backwards to stop racing rams.
* When a stun wears off, the creature that was stunned will prefer the last target with the highest threat, versus the current target.

Druids

* Barkskin: The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form.

Hunters

* Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet’s Growl.
* Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
* Scare Beast: This spell will now be limited correctly to one target.

Paladins

* Greater Blessing of Light Rank 1: This spell will no longer overwrite Greater Blessing of Light Rank 2.
* Summon Warhorse is now available at level 30.

Priests

* Mind Vision: This effect will now be cancelled immediately on targets who use an Invisibility Potion or Gnomish Cloaking Device.
* Spiritual Healing: Ranks 2-5 of this talent will no longer prevent refreshing Prayer of Mending.

Rogues

* Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

Shaman

* Earth Elemental: This pet will now leash back to its totem when pulled beyond 50 yards away.
* Lightning Overload: This talent will no longer do excessive damage when used with Lightning Bolt Ranks 2-10.

Warlocks

* Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
* Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
* Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death, and will not prevent keeping a record of the most recently created pet.
* Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
* Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
* Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

Warrior

* Revenge: Ranks 1-5 of this ability now have damage ranges instead of fixed damage values (like ranks 6-8.)

PvP

* The Warsong Gulch flag can no longer be picked up at the same time as a flag is capped.

Professions

* Alchemy
o Philosopher’s Stone now requires 200 Alchemy.
* Cooking
o Juicy Bear Burgers now correctly increase healing as well as spell damage.
* Jewelcrafting
o Activated beneficial effects from jewelcrafting trinkets can no longer be dispelled.
* Mining
o Green quality gems can be found in mining nodes again. The drop rate of blue gems from mining nodes remains unchanged.
* Tailoring
o Removed the cooldown from regular Mooncloth.
o Herb bags can now hold Un’goro Soil and Evergreen Pouches.
o Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags.
o New Tailoring patterns are available from Haughty Modiste in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris: Haliscan Jacket and Haliscan Pantaloons.

Quests

* Bhag’thera now spawns at a normal quest spawn rate.
* For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, phased characters will not be able to see non-phased character AoE effects and vice-versa.
* For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, pets gaining/losing phase status will now properly break off combat from unphased/phased opponents.

Dungeons and Raids

* Players can now be summoned to raid instances from heroic dungeons.
* Magister’s Terrace
o The Stun component to the Sunblade Mage Guard Glaive Throw has been removed and the Bounce range reduced.
o Vexallus and Kael’thas are now tauntable in Heroic mode.
o Vexallus’ damage caused by Pure Energy has been decreased.
o Kael’thas’ Arcane Sphere has had its visual size increased. His Arcane Sphere attack has had its range decreased and the damage/second of Phase two on Normal mode has been decreased. (Heroic mode remains unchanged.)
o Sunblade Warlocks have had their damage reduced slightly.
o Fel Crystals in the Selin Fireheart encounter have had their health reduced slightly.
o Warlord Salaris and Kagani Nightstrike have had their damage output reduced slightly.
* Sunwell Plateau
o Creatures in the area around Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash will no longer spawn while the twins are in combat.
o Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil’jaeden’s Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.
o Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil’jaeden.

Items

* Bow of the Verdant Keeper’s Aim: This item’s triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
* Brutal Gladiator’s Pummeler has had its Stamina value increased to the appropriate value.
* Clockwork Robot Bots fight amongst themselves again…without attacking people in the arena. Well… they’ll blow up other Bots in the arena, but you know what we mean.
* The Eredar Twins will now award the same items regardless of which order they are killed in.
* Invisibility Potions: These potions now are on the same cooldown as other combat consumable potions (such as mana potions.)
* Pendant of the Violet Eye: This item will again work correctly with Holy Light and Flash of Light.
* Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen: The triggered effect from this Item can now occur on periodic damage ticks.
* Thori’dal, the Star’s Fury is now Unique as intended.
* Vengeful Gladiator’s Baton of Light: This item now appears in the correct position on the vendor list.

User Interface

* The help interface has been simplified dramatically. Players will no longer be required to select a category when opening a GM ticket. In addition, players can use the “Talk to a GM” button to fill out a ticket that requires a GM response or the “Report Issue” button to fill out a ticket that does not require a GM response.
* Target buff/debuff timers that appear when you cast a spell are now more visible.
* Time Management features have been implemented! These features include an alarm clock, stopwatch, and viewing your computer’s local time.
* The new stopwatch feature can be accessed via the /stopwatch, /sw, or /timer slash commands. Inputting a time into the slash command will make the stopwatch count down. For example, /stopwatch 1:0:0 will make the stopwatch count down from an hour, /stopwatch 1:30 will make it count down from 1 minute, 30 seconds, and /stopwatch 30 will make it count down from 30 seconds.
* Added the following macro commands: /targetenemyplayer, /targetfriendplayer.
* Added key bindings for tab targeting players.
* Ctrl-Tab and other target nearest friend functions will no longer target you.
* Targeting using /target will prefer live targets over dead ones.
* You can no longer click the minimap to cast ground targeted spells.
* Invisible players with Hunter’s Mark can see the hunter that put the mark on them.
* Vendor items now show their Duration in Inventory.
* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment

* Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs may now drop Thick Yeti Fur.
* Skinning any Winterspring Ice Thistle yetis may now result in Thick Yeti Fur.
* Increased the drop rate of Pristine Yeti Horns from Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs.
* Goblin Weather Machine- Prototype 01-B weather changes will no longer force the affected character to stand.
* Collector’s Edition Pet Redemption NPCs/items/quests have been relocated/modified to/for towns with mailboxes (Goldshire, Razor Hill, etc.).
* Young Sporebats and Greater Sporebats in Zangarmarsh now drop Sporebat Eyes for the quest Gathering the Reagents.
* Blacksmithing Supplies vendor and repairer, Blazzle, in Area 52 is now next to the forge and anvil outside the inn.
* Banker Meeda, in Area 52 is now in the…well…the bank, along with a guild vault and guards. The other three Area 52 bankers are still located in the auction-house-turned-bank.
* Wastewander Bandits and Rogues should be more plentiful in the northern parts of Tanaris.

Bug Fixes

* The mage spell, Counterspell now shows in the combat log.
* Gan’arg Analyzers will no longer occasionally become friendly to players.
* Talented abilities that cost a percentage of base mana will no longer display an incorrect mana cost when inspected by a player of a different class or level.
* Guild leaders should now be able to properly promote a new guild leader regardless of their range.
* Druids: Mangle will no longer incorrectly indicate a 100-yard range on the tooltip.
* Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.
* Hunter Snake Trap will no longer break players out of stealth if the snakes pass near the stealthed character.
* Hunters: Concussive shot will now properly have a chance to proc Bow of Searing Arrows.
* Rogues: The talent Heightened Senses, Rank 1 and Rank 2 will now affect attacks from wands.
* Using Jewelcrafting figurines will no longer cause scrolling combat text to appear twice.
* Fixed an issue in which shadows were not appearing properly for users with GF4 video chipsets in Open GL mode.
* Corrected an issue in which users with Creative X-FI sound cards would sometimes hear a slight popping noise when running.
* Players will now correctly receive a Battleground Mark message for the marks that are received at the end of a battle.
* Corrected an issue where the initial trigger or activation sounds for Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap could not be heard by some players.
* Smelt Hardened Khorium will now properly require a forge instead of an anvil and hammer.
* Corrected a typo in the tooltip for the Druid spell Rip (Rank 4).
* Looting a Nightmare Vine will now properly no longer apply poison when the node is looted.
* The Figurine- Seaspray Albatross ability will now properly restore the correct amount of mana.
* First Aid bandages can no longer be applied to a player with the Recently Bandaged debuff. An error message of, “Could not activate more than one bandage” will be displayed.
* Corrected the tooltips to read properly for the flight paths from The Stormspire, Toshley’s Station, Blade’s Edge, and Area 52.
* Greater Elementals summoned by a shaman will now properly have a combat log entry.
* Players will no longer become stuck on the Nimboya’s Laden Pike when driving it into the ground.
* The quest, “Going Going, Guano!” will now have a more consistent level requirement for the dungeon.
* The quest, “Into The Scarlet Monastery” is now available to players of the appropriate level for the instance.
* Blueleaf Tubers can now be properly looted.
* The quest turn-ins for the Ahn’Qiraj war effort now give the appropriate amount of credit for each successful quest turn-in.
* Cloak of Shadows will now properly remove Shrink.
* Nightbane will no longer become unresponsive and unkillable during his air phase.
* Several items sold by the Consortium reputation vendor Paulsta’ats are now bind on pick-up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shifting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design:Thick Golden Draenite.
* It is no longer possible to delete a character that is an arena team captain without first promoting another player to captain.
* Taunts will now properly stick when a target is stunned while being taunted.

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?

A hotly contested match decided MLG’s PC Circuit Arena competition in San Diego. While a number of players lamented the term “e-sport” and have some choice words for the idea that Warcraft is balanced enough to have a tournament around, it actually had an interesting team setup in the final match.

Frag Dominant rolled in with a Rogue/Warrior/Druid

Nihlium went with a Priest/Druid/Hunter (Hunter? Really?)

After 8 matches, the teams were tied at 4-4 before Frag Dominant pulled out the victory, I’ve never been interested in watching video games, but even I thought it was kinda cool to see what the best arena team brought to bear on its opponents. Here’s a short summary from MLG’s website:

“San Diego’s World of WarCraft competition marked the dawn of a new era in MLG’s ever-expanding world. MLG’s first foray into PC Competition was a fabulous success, with nearly all of the world’s best teams in attendance. Frag Dominant took no prisoners as they ousted higher ranked teams and fan-favorites alike on their way to MLG’s first PC Circuit title. With literally hundreds of thousands of people tuned in to the live broadcast from over 100 different countries, it’s clear that WoW is here to stay and we can only expect it to get more intense as the season progresses.”

Personally I think it’s great that some players are able to be compensated for something they love to do. You won’t see me over at the pro circuit any time soon, but I think the increased competition will encourage balancing pvp combat and give WoW a higher profile.

Oh sure it may seem like a minor issue, but I always had a spot for the crews that were put in place on the boats from Menethil Harbor, Booty Bay, etc. Maybe I’m just a sucker for fluff, I love a good story and I think it’s a lot more engaging to hop on the boat to see vendors and crew to interact with. As it stands now the boats are ran by ghosts, mystically floating from one destination to the next.

Apparently I’m not the only one that thinks this, either. Blizzard CMs were kind enough to answer the not-so-important question of whether they intend to fix the boats and bring back the crew:

“We would like to return them to their posts when and if we can. Due to safety precautions on the vessels, they were removed, but hopefully the engineers will get the kinks worked out so that they can return and continue their jobs in relative safety.”

Apparently the crew were causing some serious problems, like server instability and crashes. I suppose this sort of thing falls pretty low on the priority list, too. Maybe the expansion will have boat crews that don’t blow servers up…and then they’ll add them to the old boats?

Wishful thinking…

I guess I shouldn’t be entirely surprised, but a lot of people were expecting season 4 to happen a lot later, maybe right before the expansion hit. Well you’re wrong! Season 4’s start date has been officially announced as June 24. As per above it appears we’ll be seeing a re-coloration as usual of the Sunwell Plateau armor for pvp gear, a practice that I’m really not a fan of. Worse still, classes like paladins and warriors (as per above) pretty much look exactly the same as well. Can’t we see some uniqueness or new armor, guys?

The new set will be aptly named Brutal Gladiator, and with many of the new pieces having raid requirements, expect to see the competition heat up a bit. Thankfully point selling has been cut down quite a bit since 2.4, though there is the occasional mercenary selling himself out to boost teams in need of a well-geared teammate. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that either, though I always liked the idea of mercenaries… I’d imagine Blizzard will get around to address this phenomenon as well, though for every fix they introduce, it seems like there’s always another exploit in the system around the corner. For now we’ll have to be patient, and if nothing else stopping the rampant point selling was a step in the right direction.

Also as expected, season 2 will be available for purchase via honor. Season one will be going the way of the dodo, thought you can still purchase it with t4 tokens. This is always good news for you denizens out there that prefer to slug it out in the battlegrounds over the arena fish bowl. I like variety myself, so I’ll see you in both!

There’s an interesting discussion over at the forums today talking about the role that badges will play when Wrath of the Lich King hits the shelves. Essentially a Blizzard CM, Bornakk, confirmed that they’ll be changing the way that badges are distributed and used. Rather than a system where all badges are created equal, they’ll have different instances drop different badge types, which will then be traded in for different quality items.

Needless to say, this has caused a bit of a stir among the playerbase given that badge rewards were seen as a way for casual players to progress their characters without being pigeonholed into doing content they don’t have the time or inclination to see. On other hand we have no idea how the badges are going to be dispersed, gear quality between badge types, or if you’ll be able to exchange badges for another quality type. I actually read a great suggestion over at WoWInsider as to an exchange rate that players could utilize to trade in their badges for different rewards:

“BitterCupOJoe and darian, in comments on the Blizzcast post, neatly addressed this issue through a simple mechanism: exchange rates. Let’s say there are four types of badges; we’ll call them A, B, C, and D for simplicity. We know (from this same Blizzcast interview) that they want the 10-man and the 25-man versions of the same raids to be separated by about a tier in terms of item quality. Therefore, it would make sense if:

* Naxxramas, the tier 7 raid, drops A-Badges on 10-man and B-Badges on 25-man.
* Ulduar, the t8 raid, drops B-Badges on 10-man and C-Badges on 25-man.
* Whatever the t9 raid turns out to be drops C-Badges on 10-man and D-Badges on 25-man.”

Ultimately I think different badge rewards from different areas could be a boon to raiders and 10 man warriors alike. I’m not so sure that this new system will be an artificial barrier for players, but unfortunately that is a possibility. Only time will tell of course, despite the usual widespread speculation on the forums.

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!