WOW Insider

More Death Knight news and clarifications via the CMs and Ten Ton Hammer

Daniel Whitcomb — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Expansions, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

Having had a few hours to sleep and then a few more to digest the new information on the Death Knights, I'm finally getting a clearer picture of what the Death Knight will be able to do and how they'll fit into the existing hierarchy of classes, and I have to say, I'm still just as excited. There's a lot of questions that have risen from a lot of corners, but new information has come to light that may answer at least a few of them.

First, let's look at some of the clarifications the CMs have been offering, and clear up some other questions from the comments of this morning's article about how creating a Death Knight will work:

Continue reading More Death Knight news and clarifications via the CMs and Ten Ton Hammer

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

WoW Insider Show: Mother's Day edition live tomorrow

Mike Schramm — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:31:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King, WoW Insider Show

For tomorrow's WoW Insider Show (which you can hear live at 3:30pm EST on WoW Radio), we're doing something a little special for Mother's Day: we've got mothers! Amanda Dean is actually bringing her mother on the show, and Ms. Emrys, (aka SpaceLady) is a WoW player herself, so we'll chat with her about what it's like to come to games via World of Warcraft. Robin Torres will also be joining us, and she's got little ones of her own, so she'll tell us what it's like to be a WoW player while also running your own little "guild" in real life. And Turpster will return after his absence last week -- all we can say about him is that he's a bad mother... shut yo' mouth.

Plus, we definitely can't ignore all the Wrath of the Lich King info that dropped last night, so we'll definitely be talking about vehicles, Death Knights, the 10/25 man instances, and all of the other huge information that Blizzard dropped on us like a ton of level 80 bricks. And as usual (as if all that wasn't enough), we'll have reader mail, which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com, and we'll be chatting in IRC as well at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel.

Whew! It's a mother of a show. Make sure to tune in tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, at 3:30pm EST over on WoW Radio. See you there.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Gamespy Interviews J. Allen Brack

Daniel Whitcomb — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:25:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Instances, Quests, Expansions, Raiding, Lore, Mounts, Interviews, Wrath of the Lich King

Here's one more tidbit of WoTLK information for you, courtesy of Gamespy. They sat down for an interview with co-lead design J. Allen Brack. Most of the information is stuff we've heard in the past or have already posted on in this morning's massive flurry, but it's always nice to get a peek into the brain of the folks who bring us this amazing game.

Among some of the things discussed by J. Allen Brack and Gamespy:

Flying Mounts are gone until level 77, at which point you will either complete a quest or a visit a trainer to be able to use them again. You will still not be able to use the mounts in the old world, so even though Naxxramas is on Azeroth, your flying mount will not be able to cross back over the sea to visit the old stomping grounds. The Old World was designed using too many graphical shortcuts in places people were not meant to access to allow flying mounts.
They have recieved massive positive feedback so far about the return to Azeroth and the old traditional fantasy as opposed to the sci-fi feel of the Burning Crusade. In that same vein, they are bringing back many familiar sights and storylines from Old Azeroth. Sholozar Basin will be Un'goro 2.0, complete with crystals and pylons. No word on whether it will also contain more Land of the Lost and Nintendo references. It will also contain some of the flavors of Stranglethorn and the old Netherstorm biodomes, says J. Allen.
In a similar vein, we can expect to see more of the ever-popular Scarlet Crusade, this time in the form of the Scarlet Onslaught. The Worgen are back in homage to the Sons of Arugal and Shadowfang Keep.
While the city of Dalaran will be headed up to WoTLK, don't expect to see nothing but a hole in the ground where it used to be in Alterac. J. Allen reveals that they do have plans for the spot, and the concept drawings they have for it look very cool.
The Dragonblight, J. Allen Brack said, is probably his favorite new piece of content for the expansion. It is where the Dragons were born, where they recieved sentience from the Titans, and where they come to die, and where the Lich King has been twisting Dragon corpses to serve him as Frost Wyrms, so there's a lot of great lore and history there. It will include a raid instance called the Chamber of the Aspects, and while no bosses have been designed for it yet, it will probably have bosses representing each of the Dragonflights.

It sounds like the developers are nearly as excited about WoTLK as we are, which is usually a good sign of things to come. We hope you've enjoyed all this awesome new information we've found for you tonight. There may be more to come, so stay tuned as we scour all the latest news.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Death Knight class revealed

Daniel Whitcomb — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:25:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

Via Gamespy and Worldofwar.net, we finally have a good idea of what rolling a Death Knight will be like. A lot of the rumors seem to have panned out, but others have not. All I know is that at this point, I am full speed ahead to make a Death Knight my new main come WoTLK. There's a lot of meaty info to dig into, so let's get to it after the break.

Continue reading The Death Knight class revealed

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

More Wrath of the Lich King impressions and information coming out

Mike Schramm — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:15:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions, Lore, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

WorldofWar.net also got an invitation to the Blizzard event this past week (our invitation must have been lost in the mail, maybe?), and they've got six full pages of text about what they saw. Six pages hard to read though, so we've got all the salient points right here:

Both Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton presented, with Kaplan showing off the Death Knight class and Chilton showing off the work they've done on Northrend.
The Forsaken-designed starting town Vengeance Landing was shown off -- this was the same area we got to play back at Blizzcon, as well as Utgarde Keep
They also got to see Valliance Keep (the other Alliance starting area), and Warsong Hold, a huge gothic iron structure run by Garosh Hellscream that Kaplan apparently called the "new look " of the Horde
Horde players will be taking a Zepplin up to Northrend
The Nexus, in the Coldarra part of the Borean Tundra, is the first instance on the western side of Northrend from Utgarde Keep, and it's a three wing instance with a raid dungeon where players will meet Malygos.
The Badge of Justice system will continue in Northrend, but there will be new tokens to act as Badges and be returned for loot.

Lots more after the break.

Continue reading More Wrath of the Lich King impressions and information coming out

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Gamespy's hands on with Wrath of the Lich King

Mike Schramm — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:09:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Instances, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Rumors

Gamespy has lifted their press embargo, and there's lots of new Wrath of the Lich King info up. They apparently did a long hands-on with the expansion, and lots of new zone and gameplay info has come out.

The area is apparently much bigger than Outland
There is an aerial gondola, a huge sea battle, and apparently an archeological expedition where you'll be able to fly planes
All five Dragonflights appear in Dragonblight, a huge graveyard for dragons
There's "a sister area to Un'goro," which means tropical rainforests. There are also lots of different areas within larger zones.
Worgen and the sons of Arugal are back, and the Scarlet Crusade is now called the Scarlet Onslaught. And one quest is based on a mission from Warcraft III.
Death Knight can turn dead teammates into ghouls -- "plenty of fun in the Arenas"
There are "vehicle" quests, where players drive a vehicle (planes, trucks, or even dragons) around to accomplish tasks

Unfortunately, the Gamespy folks aren't raiders, so there's not much information about the new instances and raids in Northrend (in this piece anyway -- we've got more dungeons and raids info coming out). But just the mentions of some of this stuff -- the different vehicle quests (maybe Grand Theft Azeroth is realer than we thought) -- is enough to get us excited.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

LFG Armory uses Armory to match up characters and guilds

Mike Schramm — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Guilds, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Raiding, Classes

LFG Armory is a new site that's aiming to beat the official Armory at its own game. Blizzard's site, as complete as it is, is still occasionally buggy and slow, and LFG Armory is looking to give players an alternative. And it works fairly well -- while the FAQ claims that data may be a little behind (due to caching of Blizzard's information), both the guild and player profile pages look pretty good and load quickly (and if the site can stay up after we link to them here, that'll be a real sign that it's a stable server).

But the real feature that makes LFG Armory something more than Blizzard's official site is that it has a guild and arena team matching system built in. Once you register your name and your characters, you can do a search for guilds and arena teams and try to find one that matches what you want -- percentage of level 70s, class makeup, and number of members. On the guild side, you can set your guild as looking, and then when you hit a match, LFG will match you up.

It's an interesting system, but like all social networks, it all depends on participation -- when I looked for a guild for my Hunter on Cenarius (who could use a guild, by the way), nothing came up, because likely no one on the server was looking (for a Hunter at least). But as an alternative to the Armory, LFG is looking pretty good. If they can get people to the site and stay up, they might give Blizzard's official site a run for its money.

[Via World of Raids]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Four Wheels of Fury wins a Webby

Mike Schramm — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Machinima, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Humor

Blizzard has posted that the commercial for the Toyota truck that used WoW as a setting has won a People's Choice Webby award for online commercial. It was beaten out for the actual award by those Mac vs. PC online ads that spanned across some of the most popular websites online, but in the voting, the people decided that "I am the lawgivaaa!" was a little more exciting and creative. And as big a fan as I am of John Hodgman (and I am a big fan), I have to agree.

So rack up another award for using Blizzard's game in television media. Personally, I'm waiting until the networks figure out that they need to set a sitcom in Azeroth -- can't wait to see "The Thunderhorns," coming to NBC this fall.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Gold farmers arrested in China

Mike Schramm — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Economy

Here in the US, you can't really arrest someone for selling gold in-game -- it's against Blizzard's Terms of Service, so they can ban you from the game or even file suit against you, but it's not actually illegal. But in China, under communism, things are apparently a little different. Two gold farmers have actually been arrested by the government for "unfair revenue distribution" -- apparently the two had a disagreement about how to distribute the over $200,000 they had made from selling gold in World of Warcraft.

Word is going around that "unfair revenue distribution" is the actual charge in the arrest, but it sounds like they just had a financial disagreement, so we really have no idea what they'd be charged with. Unfortunately, China isn't exactly forthcoming with how its legal system actually works, so who knows what's really happening here.

Their operation also sounds interesting as well -- they had been going for about seven months, and had a crew of 20 PCs and 20 employees. There's little chance that an arrest like this will make much of an actual difference in the game (and there's no way an arrest in China will set a precedent in the US), but it is an interesting case that we'll follow if we can.

[Via WorldofWar.net]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Wrath will bring new forum icons

Mike Schramm — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums

Tactial mentions on the forums that all of the Rogues (in fact, this is true about almost everyone) are still in Tier 4. When Burning Crusade first came out and we all reached 70, Tier 4 was where it was at -- some people were excited about being in Tier 4, even if they hadn't earned it yet. But nowadays, Tier 4 ain't that great, and yet all of our forum icons shows us in the (now old) armor.

Drysc does say that the Armory is a click away from the forum icons, but surely Blizzard could take an afternoon and code a little customization into the icons. It seems like everyone else can render icons out of game -- why can't they? There is some good news for those looking for a forum icon update, though: Drysc says that when we're all level 80, we'll probably have new icons yet again, with shiny T7 on our characters.

Which will be great -- until a few big content patches after Wrath, when T9 will be out and we'll all be whining that we're still dressed in T7. Thus goes the circle, the circle of life.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Draw Frostmourne, win fabulous prizes

Daniel Whitcomb — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Items, Blizzard, News items, Contests, Wrath of the Lich King

You know, I've always wanted a bit more drawing talent, but never more so than right now, as Blizzard has just announced a new fanart contest. They're looking for the best ~~European~~ fanart of Arthas wielding Frostmourne.

The entries will be judged by a panel of developers, and if you win, you'll not only receive one of Epic Weapons' Frostmourne Replicas, but a guaranteed slot in the upcoming beta for WoTLK. 2nd and 3rd place runners up will also receive a slot in the beta.

It should be noted that the contest is currently being announced on the European site, and the rules state that the contest is open only to residents of France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, or Ireland. There doesn't appear to be any word yet on whether we'll get an American version of the contest, but here's hoping we see that soon. It seems likely that Blizzard had to create two seperate contests because of legal requirements, and is still working on getting the US version up.

Check out Blizzard's official announcement here and the official rules here.

EDIT: The American version of this contest can be found here.

[Thanks to all our tipsters for sending this in!]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Week 3 Arena Tournament Update

Amanda Dean — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Ranking, Events, Blizzard, PvP, Arena

Teams continue to vie for top position in the $200,000 3v3 arena tournament Slash Bark continues to hold on to the top spot with a rating of 2056. Last weeks second and third place teams Let's Be Friends and Jacked as F have dropped into fourth and fifth places respectively, giving way to MoB Gaming (2022) and Eclipse (2020).

RMP teams are well represented among the top contenders. The top 11 teams are all within 100 points of first place, and I wouldn't count out any of the 20 teams over 1900 ratings just yet. At this point all team rosters have been locked and new additions cannot be made.

The remainder of the tournament will include a second qualifying round, followed by regional contests for a shot at the prize money. MLG Is preparing a $22,500 tournament as Blizzard works to make a place for WoW PvP as an Esport, without damaging the PvE game. I suspect that the second qualifying round on the tournament server will be much less popular than the first.

The WoW Insider team fell prey to scheduling difficulties with our Friday Night bouts, but should be back in the saddle this week.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Interest group speaks up against Blizzard on Glider case

Mike Schramm — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:31:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items

Blizzard's lawsuit against the Glider folks (who were trying to sell a bot that was used to play the game while /afk), has a new wrinkle in it. According to PC Gamer, an interest group called Public Knowledge (they're funded by a variety of creative arts foundations) has filed a brief in the case accusing Blizzard of overstepping their rights under copyright law. In the brief, and an accompanying blog post, they say that while what Glider is doing in-game may be wrong, it isn't actually copyright infringement, because the Glider software doesn't actually infringe on any copyrights that Blizzard holds. And they're worried that if Blizzard wins this case, it could set a precedent strongly in favor of copyright holders, to the point where any misuse of the software at all, from using bots to using the wrong name, would be interpreted instead as copyright infringement.

They kind of have a point here -- Blizzard just used all the tools they had in this case to try and send a clear message to anyone out there trying to sell automation software that what they were doing would get them in trouble, and they may have thrown copyright infringement on the menu when it didn't really belong. For Blizzard's part, they claim that making a copy in RAM of the game's information constitutes copyright infringement, but again, that's only because Glider is misusing those RAM files -- every user everywhere needs to copy parts of the game into RAM in order to run it.

At any rate, Public Knowledge has filed their brief and had their voices heard. It's up to the judges in this case to decide what comes out of it.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Bornakk speaks on the whole esports thing

Daniel Whitcomb — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Classes, Buffs, Arena

So a while back, Tom Chilton talked about turning WoW into a "viable Esports platform" in an interview with Gamespy, and lots of players did not take it well. Some time later, the fire has still not died down. Darqchild of the Perenolde server posted another complaint about this the other day, expressing a belief that the creation of a 2nd rule set and the domination of the esports concept had already gone with the implementation of a Tournament server.

Continue reading Bornakk speaks on the whole esports thing

Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Guild visits Blizzard HQ

Mike Schramm — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fan stuff, Guilds, Blizzard, News items

The cast and crew of The Guild got invited by Blizzard to come take a tour of the new facilities the other week, and they have a writeup on their website right now (written by Jeff Lewis, who plays Vork on the show) of their trip. Sounds like a lot of fun -- they got to tour the place, obviously, checking out the Hall of Fame, the gym and cafeteria (including the official "Blizzard Trays" area -- that sign makes me laugh), and the main offices. They also got to sit down and each lunch with Mike Morhaime, and then got to play both Starcraft 2 and some Rock Band with the staff. No Wrath?

Blizzard sent them home with lots of swag, too. I was under the impression, especially given the comments on our last Guild post, that we weren't really sure that the game these guys were playing was World of Warcraft -- they've never said the name, as far as I know, and we've never seen any character shots. But Blizzard disagrees, apparently -- they've very sure The Guild is playing WoW, and they gave them a super nice tour for being a part of the game and the community.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Knaak works on more graphic novels for Blizzard

Mike Schramm — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Gnomes, Tauren, Blizzard, Burning Crusade, Lore, NPCs, Comics

I don't think this is new news (though Blizzplanet has a note about it at the New York Comic Con a week or so ago, so maybe it came from there), but Richard Knaak is apparently working on a new World of Warcraft manga comic, called The Dragons of Outland. While Amazon still has the release date at June 17th, the date given for release at NY Comic Con is Fall 2009 (though that may be for Volume 2). Apparently the book will feature Jorad Mace, a Paladin who can be seen in Netherstorm right now, will touch on Malygos' insanity (which we may see firsthand in Wrath), and it will also be the continuation of the Netherwing quests storyline (which some fans aren't really excited to see in Knaak's hands).

It does sound interesting, though, and it might be fun to see something in the books that's a result of player actions. In other WoW graphic novel news, there is another book planned as well, called Warcraft: Legends, that will have two stories in it. One will be called "Fallen," about a Tauren Hunter who's been featured before in The Sunwell Trilogy, and another story called "How to Win Friends and Influence People," written by Dan Jolley about a Gnome of some kind (who knew they were important enough to write about?).

Legends is due a little sooner than Dragons of Outland -- Blizzplanet says it's expected in August of this year. So WoW graphic novel fans have a lot to look forward to.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Forum Post of the Day: Assassination nation

Mike Schramm — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Humor, NPCs

I love what Kre's doing on the forums: he's calling for NPC assassination targets. And he's not all talk -- when he gets asked to take a target out, whether it be Katrina Prestor herself or the Ironforge bread vendor (who will not... shut... up!), he and his assassination crew get the job done.

My choice for a kill has already been done (Die, Fandral Staghelm!), but there are all kinds of great requests in the thread -- unfortunately, due to the code of the assassin, Kre can't kill the little kid who stole that dolly in Stormwind, as children are not viable targets. But even Drysc has been sent to meet his maker by these guys. Hilarious. If an NPC has been giving you trouble lately, they'll make sure there are no more problems, if you know what we mean.

Not all the war in Warcraft can be fought on the battlefield -- some of it has to be fought in the back alleys and in the shadows. Glad to see that Kre and his crew (Aelas has pulled off some excellent kills here, too) are going a little guerilla in the constant fight against NPCs.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blizzard developers are out there

Adam Holisky — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Odds and ends, Blizzard

An interesting discussion went on in the Community Service forums yesterday concerning the role Blizzard developers play in those very forums. A poster was obviously attempting to troll and start some argument, asking if the Blizzard devs actually do read what people write or pay attention to the community at large. Kisirani, a Blizzard developer, responded that indeed they do.

A few interesting things came from subsequent blue posts that help outline the roles of the developers and community managers. First, it is the job of the community managers (CMs as we call them) to do just what their title says: manage the community. This includes the forums and everything that goes on in there. Kisirani tells us that they regularly collect feedback and suggestions and pass them along to the developers. Kisirani makes it a point to say that they don't have enough time to read everything themselves, and if they were to read everything the game itself would not be developed - and again, this is where the community managers come into play.

Continue reading Blizzard developers are out there

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The end of queue dodging

Amanda Dean — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Items, Ranking, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Forums, Arena

Drysc updated his post on the official forums regarding Season Four Arena changes. It looks like Blizzard is working to put an end to queue dodging and thereby stifle the practice of win trading. Drysc quoted the revised arena rules, "If a team does not enter an arena match that is starting they will lose points equal to the amount that would have been deducted if they had played and lost." With this augmentation, players will no longer be able selectively battle only teams that have agreed to a loss.

Since the Arenas began, there have been many underhanded methods players have used to inflate their ratings and gain access to the latest and greatest gear. Blizzard continues to intervene in order to fix the flawed system. Season four will include a few more changes to make things fair:

"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."
"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."

These changes have been implemented to make point and team selling practices less lucrative. With these changes combined with personal rating requirements, it seems the developers really are interested in making people earn their keep as PvPers. This leads me to wonder what they will think up next. Whatever it is, we'll keep you posted.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Breakfast Topic: Brutal(lus) Gladiator gear

Amanda Dean — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Hunter, Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP, Breakfast topics, Arena

So I've been really excited about the coming of Arena season four. Unfortunately I'm not particularly thrilled about the gear models, and I am not alone. Perhaps the developers say reusing the tier 6.5 models from the Sunwell (Tier 6.5) as a good way to cut corners, but it just doesn't look like PvP gear. It seems to be the way the Arena gear is designed.

I'm pretty sure whoever recolored these skins probably has an issue with their visual perception. The Hunter gear looks like an armored clown suit and the Shaman set is reminiscent of a test for colorblindness. I'm not usually one to rant, but these sets are a visual disappointment. I'm not asking for pink and black (although that appeals to my inner girly girl), but for the love of Christopher Walken, at least make the set match itself.

To date my favorite set to look at is the Season Two gear, especially the Warrior set. I feel that they the designers really captured the uniqueness of the classes best with those sets.

What do you think of Season Four gear so far?

Permalink | Email this | Comments