World of Warcraft

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

Well the first qualifying round is officially finished! Needless to say I didn’t finish in the top 5, but I had a great time! Who came away with victory? What classes do they play? What gear do they use? Let’s find out!

This lends credit to some arguments about class balance in pvp while dispelling others. Shamans for example, are often thought as an underpowered shadow of their former selves, and visiting the forums you’d think they were entirely useless. However both of the top 2 teams of the tournament contain a shaman. I also found it interesting that the number one team had a hunter, though I wonder how many matches he/she really played overall.

Regardless it lends some food for thought when constructing an arena team of your own. While personally I like to play with friends, and so we sort of posh together whatever class combinations we have at a given time. There’s no doubt that class combinations pay a vital role in your success in the arenas, but given the comparisons above, it looks like you have a good bit of flexibility in choosing your classes. I don’t see all rogues or all druids (though most teams seem to have one!), though I’m sure many teams use them. Even hunters have a top spot! We’ll see if things change as the rounds go on.

There’s certainly a sense of accomplishment derived from clearing an entire raid instance. Much like when you complete a tough heroic for the first time, it’s just plain fun. Having killed Zul’jin about a month ago, I worried that we wouldn’t have enough 10-man content to keep us busy while waiting for the expansion.

I was wrong.

While we’ve begun to dabble in racing to complete all of the chests in the instance, in search of the elusive bear mount. If you’re not familiar, as soon as you enter the instance a timer begins. You’re given a finite amount of time to kill up to 4 bosses. For each boss that you kill in time, you get an extra piece of loot as a reward. If you manage to get all 4, then you get a very cool looking bear mount. Last night we had our best attempt ever, hitting 3 of 4 chests. Here’s how we did it:

That’s a very brief overview, but it’s an interesting concept that I hope they revisit in the future. Pushing the limit on how fast you can do the content really drives players to pay attention and kill with ruthless efficiency. We had the entire instance cleared out in about 3 hours. That’s what I like to see!

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…

Tom Chilton, one of the lead game designers over at Blizzard, recently had an interview at Gotfrag about the state of the Arena game and what we can expect in the future. Much of it deals with the “esport” area of Blizzard’s development. Essentially many of Blizzard’s games have benefited from professional tournaments and matches associated with their games. Starcraft, for example, may have died out long ago if it weren’t for the professional organizations to keep many a player’s interest in the game, particularly in Korea. It seems that they are aiming to increase World of Warcraft’s lifespan in this manner as well.

What I found most interesting was a question related to the importance of PvE vs. PvP gameplay, here was Tom’s answer:

Where is Blizzard’s priority when it comes to changes made between class dynamics; PVE or PVP?

“We strive to evaluate all aspects of World of Warcraft evenly in terms of class dynamics. We want every class to feel unique and useful in instances, raids, Battlegrounds, and Arena play. Ideally, no matter what class a player chooses, he or she will be able to experience and enjoy all aspects of World of Warcraft in one form or another. Players should be able to customize characters by changing equipment, talents, or play styles to correspond to the type of game experience they prefer.”

So there you have it, the answer is both! Many players complain about the so-called “focus” on the esport side of arena gameplay. Some may argue it’s unbalanced, while others claim it can never be balanced and so can’t really be viable as an esport. Whatever the case may be, it hasn’t significantly affected my gameplay or experience to date, and so I’m neutral on the issue myself.

You can view the full article here.

It’s true, after quite a number of guilds vying for the very first killing of Kil’jaeden, SK-Gaming has managed to bring him down. I tend to have a rather distanced view of such events, much like someone says a huge earthquake in China caused all sorts of damage and misery, and you respond with “oh.” I can somewhat respect the accomplishment, but it’s so out of my scope that I can’t really gage the effort or time needed to do it. That content is beyond my time schedule, and likely will continue to be until the next expansion, but I do hope to see it at some point.

If you’re curious, here’s the link!

It’s almost a shame that MMO companies are faced with the fact that a lot of players put so much time into their game that they have to constantly create content for them to churn through, while the vast majority of players barely scratch the surface. Such design tends to perpetuate the treadmill feeling that many players complain about in “I quit!” posts. After a few weeks of chewing glass you move on to a more challenging boss, where you’ll chew glass until you get them, get their gear to move on to a….see where I’m going with this? It tends to inflate item power too fast, or force game developers to make content so insanely hard that no one can beat a boss until they’re good and ready to let them.

As a rather casual player myself, I think I’d get quite bored with the schedule that SK-gaming, Nihlium, or any other “hardcore” guild mandates. I like to spread my time around various activities, WoW being one of many. On one hand I admire their dedication, but on the other I have to believe there’s more to life than downing bosses in a video game. Such is the conundrum for game designers and not me to consider, I suppose.

Regardless congratulations are in order for SK-Gaming!

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…

I admittedly found this over at WoW Insider, but thought it humorous enough to share with you all as well. Whether or not it’s true of course remains up for debate, and there are plenty of players cheering this person on as well as people bashing them for being stupid. Regardless, a recent post over at the EU forums told by the boyfriend of a girl who went into labor and finished out the WSG match she was in after going into labor:

” Like it says me and my girl friend were doing some pvp on the 2nd of May when around 8:30pm her waters broke and due to shock I droped the flag died quite a few times : / (I dont think I have ever been so scared in my entire life lol) she continued untill she completed the WSG we were playing though lol (just show’s labour aint that bad!)

Then less the 12hours later she gave birth to our fisrt son Hayden, he is now leveling a gnome rouge too

Thanks for everyone that has wished us and the little gnome the best…
Atrimis & Lils
Wildhammer”

Now obviously she was told to stay put…but wow, I think she’d want to lay down or something.. even I’ll admit that’s pretty hardcore. Then again I don’t know next to anything about child birth or the process it involves, since I don’t have kids and don’t foresee any in the near future.

Regardless it makes for a pretty hilarious story.

Upon reading the title of this post, you might actually think it cause for celebration. No more death and/or Uncle Sam eating my paycheck? This is a glorious day! I hate to disappoint and all, but that’s not what I’m referring to. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s ok too, because up until a few days ago, I didn’t know who Death and Taxes was in relation to Warcraft, either.

To illustrate my point, see exhibit A.

A lot of forum chicken littles like to point to things like this and say “SEE! The hardcore riaders are leaving!” That’s all well and good.. except they didn’t leave, they re-rolled to hordeside. Also, what people don’t seem to understand is that these things can and do happen all the time in any game. I can’t really wrap my brain around those who try to grab at any straw they can get their hands on that might hint on a failure on Blizzard’s part. They want to see the game fail just to post an “I told you so” on the forums. Seriously, find something better to do with your time. Go outside.

It still does open an interesting avenue for discussion, however. Given the new-found accessibility of content and the expectation of this to continue (10-man versions of every raid instance in the expansion), many “hardcore” players have decided to head to greener pastures. I’m not convinced this is a bad thing. Being the largest MMO ever created in this history of the genre, Blizzard has the awkward position of trying to make large groups of different players happy. They want the average player to be able to login for an hour a day and accomplish something, but they also want mr. 6 hours of raiding a day to have something to do as well. So they develop dual content like Magister’s Terrace and Sunwell Plateau, which as you probably know, the average player will never even set foot inside the new 25-man instance.

Personally I think this comes down to pride and PvP. Many players raided so that they would have the best gear to go kill other players with. It didn’t make sense and it was a horrible system for anyone below the curve, but when they changed it, a lot of raiders felt like they got a playing point taken away from them. Now they were on equal footing with anyone with the inclination to pvp, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. So raiding is now what it always should have been about: progression and content.

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?

The latest patch went live yesterday and I’ve listed the notes for it below! I’ll also be covering the note about win trading and changes to the arena system in more detail tomorrow. In the mean time, enjoy!

Druids

* Talent: Primal Fury (Rank 2) will now be properly unlearned when it is untalented.

Hunters

* Aspect of the Viper: This ability now grants an additional amount of mana each 5 seconds equal to 35% of the hunter’s level.
* Boar Charge: This ability will no longer make Growl cast immediately after it generates excessive threat.
* The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power and now scales with the hunter’s Attack Power.
* Dire Ravens in Blade’s Edge Mountains are now tameable.
* Scare Beast: The range on this spell has been increased to 30 yards.
* Tamed Drywallow Snappers now will know Bite 5 (instead of Claw 5).

Mages

* Talent: Improved Blink (Arcane) now reduces chance to be hit by 13/25% and the duration of Rank 1 has been increased to 4 seconds.
* Completing the quest “Arcane Refreshment” will now properly teach the spell Conjure Water (Rank 7).
* Polymorph: Mounted creatures will no longer remain mounted while polymorphed.
* Molten Armor will now do damage while a damage absorption shield is active.
* New Teleport/Portal: Theramore and Teleport/Portal:Stonard spells are available at portal trainers in their respective locations. You must be level 35 to learn these new spells.

Paladins

* Flash of Light and Holy Light will now work properly with castsequence macros.
* Seal of the Crusader: This ability now increases the damage dealt by Crusader Strike by 40%.
* Talent: Precision (Ranks 1-3) will no longer improperly display daggers and staves as a weapon class in the tooltip.
* Paladins that already have Apprentice Riding skill can now properly learn Summon Warhorse from the trainer.

Priests

* Fear Ward will no longer be consumed while under the effects of cyclone.
* Mana Burn: This spell can no longer trigger effects that require the target to be struck with a critical hit.
* Power Word: Shield now has the correct sound associated with it and can no longer be heard from large distances.
* Talent: Power Infusion will now consume the correct amount of mana when cast on yourself.

Rogues

* Ability: Blade Flurry: This ability can no longer hit critters as its secondary targets and will now use a proper range calculation for all secondary targets.
* Talent: Mutilate (Assassination) will no longer incorrectly appear multiple times in the combat log when used.

Shaman

* Ability: Frostbrand Weapon: Rank 6 damage has been increased very slightly.

Warlocks

* Drain Soul: Channeling of this spell will now always stop when a player target dies.
* Pets: Using a sacrifice effect to kill your own pet will no longer trigger effects that should only occur when killing an enemy.

Warrior

* Sweeping Strikes: This ability can no longer hit critters as its secondary targets and will now use a proper range calculation for all secondary targets.

PvP

* Arenas
o If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
o If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.

Professions

* All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns.
* All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours.
* Enchanting
o Removed the cooldown from Void Shatter.
o Void Shatter recipe now correctly requires 375 enchanting.
* Engineering
o The Engineering supply item Delicate Copper Wire will now properly fit into engineering bags.
* Jewelcrafting
o Brilliant Glass no longer requires a forge.
o Brilliant Glass now has a small chance to make an epic gem.
o Quick Dawnstone, Reckless Noble Topaz, Forceful Talasite are now all available at the Quel’danas gem vendor.
* Leatherworking
o Completing the quest “The Journey Has Just Begun” will now properly teach how to make an Onyxia Scale Cloak.
o Greatly reduced the reagent cost for Glove Reinforcements. Also reduced the skill gain range slightly.

Quests

* The categories for the quests “Wanted: Sisters of Torment” and “Wanted: The Signet Ring of Prince Kael’thas” have been fixed to now properly read as Magister’s Terrace.
* The Shadowy Disguise will no longer be applied to druids while they are in Moonkin or Tree of Life form for the quests “Who Are They?”
* Jailor Eston and Jailor Marlgen for the quest “The Rescue” should now respawn more frequently.

Dungeons and Raids

* Black Temple
o Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid group wipes during his death speech.
* Karazhan
o Nightbane’s Charred Earth ability will now properly deal Fire damage.
* Magister’s Terrace
o Vexallus is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
o Kael’thas is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
o Wretched Skulkers, Wretched Husks, and Wretched Bruisers will now reset properly.
o Sunblade Imps will now reset properly.
o The doors in Heroic Magister’s Terrace will no longer respawn after a soft reset if a boss has already been killed.
* Sunwell Plateau
o Hellfire will no longer remove Dark Touched in the Eredar Twins encounter.
* Tempest Keep: The Eye
o Void Reaver’s Arcane orbs now generate combat log entries.

Items

* Arcane Charges now deal arcane damage.
* Abilities and trinkets that trigger after killing an opponent that gives experience or honor will no longer activate after killing mobs during bombing quests.
* Battlecast’s Garb should now properly grant pushback resistance in addition to interrupt resistance.
* Borderland Fortress Grips have had their stats updated.
* Botanist’s Gloves of Growth have had their texture corrected.
* Bow of Searing Arrows and Red Whelp Gloves will no longer break crowd control effects.
* Brann Bronzebeard’s Lost Letter: This item will no lonber display a damage range in its tooltip.
* The Cloak of Swift Mending now has a level requirement (70).
* Crusader’s Scaled Battlegear: The tooltip spelling has been corrected.
* Darkmoon Card: Madness: The durations of the buffs received from this item have been extended to 60 seconds.
* Elixir of Demonslaying: This elixir now grants ranged attack power against demons as intended.
* Goblin Jumper Cables are no longer a trinket item.
* Hazza’rah’s Charm of Healing Haste rating reduced.
* Items that enchant other items no longer have tradeskill requirements (Mithril Spurs, Shield Spikes, Weapon Chains, etc.).
* The Helm of Fire has had its casting range reduced.
* The Magic Candle has had its casting range reduced.
* Many items sold by Consortium vendors 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.
* Many items sold by Aldor reputation vendors are now bind on pick up: Design: Gleaming Golden Draenite, Design: Royal Shadow Draenite.
* Many items sold by the Shattered Sun quartermaster are now bind on pick up: Naaru Ration, Design: Ember Skyfire Diamond.
* The Lower City reputation item, Recipe: Flask of Chromatic Resistance, is now bind on pick up.
* Most Main-Hand weapons are now One-Hand weapons.
* Naturalist’s Preserving Cinch have had their stats updated.
* Nightfall now has a chance to fail on targets over level 60.
* Prince Kael’thas will now drop Primal Nethers in Heroic Magisters Terrace.
* Ravager: Judgements will no longer auto-refresh and break the effect from this item while its effect is active.
* Reins of the Black War Elekk spell and buff now correspond to the item name.
* Renataki’s Charm of Trickery has had its energy reduced.
* Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite now properly share the same cooldown.
* The Romantic Picnic Basket will now display the blanket properly.
* Shard of Azzinoth no longer shares any cooldown with Shaman elemental totems.
* The socket bonus modifiers of some items will now properly display the bonus healing.
* The reduced cooldown of Shaman Nature’s Swiftness provided by the 4 piece set bonus from the Seer’s Ringmail Battlegear PvP armor will now apply properly.
* Shattered Sun Pendant of Might: The triggered effect from this item will no longer break Scatter Shot or other crowd-controlling affects. The visual on the Scryer version has been updated.
* Shifting Naaru Sliver: Using this item no longer puts players into combat.
* Silithyst Dust: The bonus from turning this item in no longer works for players above level 63.
* The Skyshatter Helmet’s gem socket bonus will now properly reflect the plus damage in the tooltip.
* Shadowsong Panther will no longer prematurely despawn.
* Talasite Owl: This trinket will now properly restore full mana as described.
* Ten Storms Set: The Chain Heal bonus from this set has been reduced by 5%.
* Troll Male off-hand items are now the same size as the main hand item.
* Tauren weapons while sheathed have had their graphic readjusted to their pre-patch (2.4.0) state.
* The Winterfall Firewater buff is no longer dispellable.
* Wushoolay’s Charm of Nature Haste rating has been reduced.

User Interface

* The guild log scroll bar will now properly display.
* Black Lotus will now show up under the Herb subcategory in the auction house.
* Primal Nethers will now show up under the Materials subcategory in the auction house.
* Mailboxes can now be tracked on the minimap.
* For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment

* Creature versions of the Polymorph spell no longer heal the affected target.
* The dragons in Blade’s Edge Mountains will no longer instantly knock you off your mount.

Mac

* Fixed a bug causing ATI kernel panics; all spell effects should now be visible.
* Weather effects are again visible on systems with ATI 2×00 graphics such as aluminum iMac.
* Fixed a bug that precluded use of the FireWire iSight microphone with voice chat.
* Symlinks can be used again for Interface and WTF folders and subfolders.
* Cinematics playback is working again.

Bug Fixes

* Fixed an issue where secondary sound effects would not work with the Use Hardware option enabled in the Sound options of the User Interface.
* Fixed an issue where attempting to use some instant cast spells with Auto-Dismount in Flight checked in the interface would fail.
* Items that have multiple charges will now properly display the amount of charges.
* Fixed an issue where chain damage spells were chaining to critters.
* Female Draenei horns will now correctly protrude through certain plate helms.
* The Vengeful Gladiator’s Rifle will now play the proper sound when used.
* The Cursed Vision of Sargeras now gives the buff, “Sense Demons” which can be canceled normally. Additionally hunters and druids are able to track two things at once while using the item.
* It is no longer possible for pets to get stuck in place after exiting the Spectral Realm in the Kalecgos encounter.
* Blood Elf Priest: Consume Magic will now require the buff to be active in order to work properly.
* Undead and Blood Elf Priest: Touch of Weakness will now properly reduce the melee damage of the attacker.
* Fixed an issue where some spells had extraneous Floating Combat Text messages when using the Auras option.
* Fixed an issue where sometimes debuff icons on a target did not scale properly to indicate the spells had been cast by you.
* Ritual of Souls (Warlock) and Ritual of Refreshment (Mage) will no longer be placed on cooldown without having completed the summon.
* Looting a boss while a player is outside of the instance will no longer cause the corpse to despawn in 2 minutes if the player still has loot on the corpse.
* Whirlwind now has the correct sound associated with it.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.4.1

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

Hunter

* Tranquilizing Shot no longer incorrectly restricts use of other Hunter abilities in specific situations.

User Interface

* Combat Log
o Only the last 300 combat log entries are now stored.
o Filter settings are now properly saved.
o Changing zones will no longer reload the entire log

Bug Fixes

* Fixed a sound engine error that was causing lock-ups on exit.
* Fixed a shader error that was causing kernel panics on Mac PowerPCs.
* Fixed a bug on Mac that was preventing the intro Cinematics from playing.

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.

You know it figures as soon as I make a post about information not coming fast enough…Blizzard releases an entire presentation on what we should expect in the coming expansion! You can check out all the nitty gritty details here, but I’ll post the highlights for those who don’t feel like reading through it all…

General

* All 25 man raids in Wrath will also be available to complete with 10 players. This is so that more players will get to see end game content (Even the Arthas encounter will be available as a 10 man raid).
* There will be completely different loot tables for the two different raid types. They will also be on separate cool downs, so players could fight in both the 10 man and 25 man raid on the same day if they wish.
* The mounts available to buy in Wrath will probably be able to take passengers. These mounts will also work in the old world (Provided they are land mounts), so players can give low-level characters a ride! The new mounts will also be slightly faster, around the speed of the Armored Netherdrakes.
* All 5-man instances in Northrend will feature Heroic modes, and the loot tables for the 2 modes will be totally separate. Heroic dungeons will have their own “Tier” of armor completely unique to that level dungeon.

Death Knights

* Death Knights will be available to players who have a character level 55+ on the same realm. There is no other requirement at this time.
* Players are allowed 1 Death Knight per realm that they have a level 55+ character on.
* Death Knights will be “born” in a floating Necropolis over the Eastern Plaguelands, similar to Naxxramas.
* Death Knights will start at level 55.
* A Death Knight’s starting armor will be a mixture of green and blue quality items. The first few quests that they encounter will provide upgrades to these starting items, and these upgrades will be armor specific to Death Knights.
* Death Knights can dual wield.
* One Death Knight spell is Raise Dead, which converts a fallen unit into a ghoul for a time to serve the Death Knight, similar to a Hunter’s pet. If the spell is used on a fallen friendly player, the player will be presented with an option box similar to a resurrection message, and if they accept, they will take control of the ghoul and will be able to use its abilities for the period of time that it is active. This can work as a sort-of battle res, and Chilton stated it may be available in Arenas.

Northrend

* Northrend is Huge. It is larger than Outland by a couple of zones, and some of the zones in Northrend are bigger than the largest zone in Outland.

It’s tough waiting for a game you’re excited about. I almost wish I didn’t know something was being released until the day before it happened. Think about it. When you’re going to the movies and you see the trailer for the next Batman (or whatever piques your interest) and you get all psyched and excited only to get hit with the release date…

“Coming in (sometime over a year from now)”

Wonderful.

Blizzard, for it’s part, has been no better. I want to play Starcraft 2, but who knows how long until that game comes to fruition. Worse still is the newest expansion for World of Warcaft, Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard has been very tight-lipped about what exactly we’ll see when the game is released. They’ve trickled out information here and there, but nothing of real substance. The forums seem to be a place to vent their frustration about them being so tight-lipped. Neth, a Blizzard CM, had this cryptic response:

“The great thing about vapor is that at some point it condenses and becomes rain. The rain then falls and nourishes that which it falls on. It takes time for it to happen, but it does happen. Signs point to clouds forming in the sky, but you never can tell when they will let loose the rain…”

So it appears that there is a large amount of information waiting on the horizon, but they’re not at liberty to discuss the details. Whatever it is, it better be good, because as Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part.