Bornakk announced last night that selected US PvP realms will be given free character moves starting at Noon pacific time today, July 10th, and ending on July 17th. As always, Blizzard does reserve the right to close transfers early once their quotas are met, so be sure to get your transfer request in as early as possible if you plan to move. Once the transfers are open, you can visit the character move page to request a transfer.
The realm transfers are as follows:
Characters from the Barthilas and Frostmourne realms may move to the Dreadmaul realm.
Characters from the Illidan, Mal'ganis, and Warsong realms may move to the Zuluhed realm.
Answering a question about water mounts, Jennie said that they don't seem to be in the works. Still, you can get your H2O kicks with the non-player-controllable boats in Lake Wintergrasp. Another questioner asked whether the flying combat mounts will take damage. Some of these combat mounts will have shielding to protect the player from damage, but the mount will take damage instead.
Killing Arthas
Consensus in the chat was that there is a lot of excitement around the idea of being able to kill Arthas, the Lich King, even if it takes up the same progression as Kil'Jaeden currently does in TBC. The hope is that Frostmourne will drop, but the consequences of getting the sword are not yet known. Will it corrupt the player and take away stats? Will players become the new Lich King if they pick it up? We'll have to wait and see.
That's just one of the questions awaiting an answer for us in the post-Wrath world. Another came from a chat question about whether there would be any future for the Warcraft franchise after Arthas is dead. From what our bloggers have heard, there's no standing still for the franchise. Turpster says, "I think a favourite King of mine might be making a return to a Stormy City!"
We reported yesterday about the new icy splash screen which has appeared on many of Blizzard's corporate and gaming sites. There's already tons of speculation speeding around the web about it, and of course the pot was only stirred all the more this morning when the picture changed slightly: the light in the middle of the cracked ice became brighter, and there's some new detail that can be seen through the ice, including a rune of some sort just to the upper right of the center. we can probably assume that the picture will change more each day until something is announced at the Worldwide Invitational. However, the question remains: What is being announced?
Right now, there's two major schools of thought about it: One school says that this will lead up to the announcement of the WoTLKBeta, while another says that this will be the announcement of Diablo 3. Each side has some pretty passionate arguments, and are bringing the analysis to back it up. Let's look at what we have after the break.
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, WoW Insider's newest weekly feature column. Have a question about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe? Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment! Let's leap right into things, and see what Tyler wants to know, shall we?
Question: If the Ashbringer is really the Light's answer to Frostmourne, then why isn't anyone trying to use it, or destroy it? Is it because that Tirion Fordring has it? If he does, in WotLK then, he needs our help to weaken the Lich King and let him use it?
Answer: Nobody is using the Ashbringer right now because nobody has the Ashbringer in its true, Light-blessed form. Last we knew, the Ashbringer was still in Highlord Mograine's hands in a Corrupted form. The latest Know Your Lore covers the events leading up to that in a little more detail. Currently, we either need to purify The Ashbringer or forge a new one to be able to use it against the Lich King.
A Discussion of the newly droppedThori'dal bought up a lively discussion on Legendary weapons in my guild chat the other day, which has in turn set my own mental wheels turning. Looking at the difference between the pre-Burning Crusade Legendaries and the Burning Crusade Legendaries, there's one big difference that stands out (beyond the level difference): The pre-BC Legendaries were quested, while the BC Legendaries have been drops.
The clear-cut off seems to suggest that at some point, Blizzard decided that creating long, involved quests in order to obtain Legendary weapons just wasn't the way to go, and they'd rather let the RNG take care of distributing Legendaries. But the question is, did they make the right choice? There's good arguments for both sides.
Blizzard's site is down (and it's killing my daily routine of checking the forums, unfortunately), but there is one consolation -- over on the EU site, which is still up, you can grab a trio of new wallpapers for Wrath of the Lich King, including this handsome shot of the lichy monarch himself (although every time I see this armor, I can't help but think of Private Ownsusohard's "im the lich king lol" silliness back at BlizzCon).
There's also a shot of Arthas rocking Frostmourne, and a screenshot of that big furnace inside Utgarde Keep (which has been around for a while, but still looks cool. If you're looking to adorn your desktop with some cold and snowy images while the weather heats up outside, there you go.
In fact, almost any of these Wrath images might work for you. The sizes aren't actually wallpaper, but with a little tweaking, you could pretend you were in Northrend already.
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, WoW Insider's newest weekly feature column. Have a question about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe? Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!
We have no reason to delay, so let's get right into the meat of things!
Jere asks: I might be wrong on location, but why is there a member of the Argent Dawn stationed in Dun Morogh just southeast of IF?
Answer: Unfortunately, we have no idea. Father Gavin might just be an emissary or representative from the Argent Dawn to Dun Morogh, but he has no quests or dialogue attached to him. It's possible he'll be used for something in the future, but it seems unlikely. He simply exists. Nothing more.
It seems like one of the biggest problems a lot of people have with Death Knights is the fact that they can be all races. Me, I say: Why not? The lore really isn't as bad as you might think. Sure, some of the retcons can get a little annoying, but despite the fact that non-Paladin races will get to be Death Knights, I don't think you really consider it a retcon, but rather an evolution in an ever-evolving story that opens up a lot of great story ideas and RP opportunities, and I'm really looking forward to it.
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.
Blizzplanet has a list of all the bidders (for public humiliation purposes?) -- the "winner's" (if you can call someone out $20k a winner) name was Xeophonix, apparently from Italy. Only the first two bidders went all out -- there's one more $20k bid, and then it drops to $12k, $5k, and then on down from there to the much more reasonable bids around $500. But grats to Xeophonix -- hope the $20,000 sword is worth it. And watch your back -- we don't know exactly how you kill a Lich King, but if Weaponmasters didn't quite get Arthas' sword away from him for good, you might have an angry Menethil/Ner'zhul showing up at your door.
Zv of Destromath has an interesting argument on the forums -- he says that Blizzard has overextended themselves, and that by producing everything from trading cards to credit cards to WoW minis, the board game, and the upcoming movie (and he even forgot the FigurePrints and Dell deals), they've lost sight of what they should be working on: the game itself. While Zv does admit on the second page what Bornakk points out on the first (that it's not the same people or even the same company working on all of this stuff, and that the devs are still working on designing the game, not writing a script for the movie), there is still the same old argument here when anything goes mainstream and starts selling a brand: has the original material been neglected?
It's up to you, of course, whether you think that's the case or not, but there's no question at all that Blizzard is a completely different company because of World of Warcraft. Before this game, they were a popular-but-still-boutique games studio famous for just a few quality titles in even fewer franchises. But now, they're part of not one but two multinational corporations (one of which shares their name), and they oversee a global empire not just of rights and license releases, but of millions of players and financial interests all over the place. As Zv says, why are they making more deals for expensive swords when they still claim they don't have the manpower to let us use flying mounts in Azeroth?
The problem here is that you can't really second guess Blizzard -- despite the fact that you may agree or disagree with the decisions they've made, there's no question that they've got a successful game on their hands and that they've done nothing but make money with it. But though the Warcraft licensing universe seems to be growing at an exponential rate, we hope (and we'll find out, we guess, with the release of patch 2.4 and the expansion), that the core game is still as strong as ever.
No, seriously, behold Frostmourne! (Block of ice trapping the undead soul of Ner'zhul sold separately.) Now, I generally don't collect mechandise. I ignored the t-shirts, I didn't get the toys, I only read the comic book because I'm a lore geek.
But look at it.
It's Frostmourne. It's a 47 inch replica of the greatest, most evil runesword yet seen in game! This thing is aimed directly at my wallet. It's actually a huge mistake on my part to even post this because my wife reads the site and now she'll know what she's getting for our anniversary.
I'm just kidding, this baby's all mine.
I do wonder if it will be disappointing if I get it and it doesn't tear away my soul and drive me onward to serve the malevolent will of the Lich King. I mean, that's part of the draw, right? I mean, just check out the stats for this thing! (Warning, stats are a joke from Blizzcon.)
It's apparently being sold and also there's an auction if you want to try and get a special, low numbered edition. Sadly, I'll have to miss that, I like being able to pay rent and eat too much. But if you have the money to spare, and you want to have a chunk of decorative metal in the form of a licensed copy of the dread runeblade, now's your chance!
Blizzard has a torrid history with the Legendary items in World of Warcraft. The first such item to raise a stink was probably Ashbringer, the sword of Highlord Mograine of the Scarlet Crusade. Though stats have been found in the game (and a Corrupted version is available), the item itself isn't obtainable by players at all (though it still may be in the future). And reader Scott recently brought another one of these not-quite-Legendary items to my attention: the Skull of Gul'dan. This is probably one of the most powerful items in all of Azeroth-- it's been used to close and open the Dark Portal, it's responsible for tearing apart Felwood, and it turned Illidan from just an emo elf into a superpowerful demonic badass. And yet, it's no more than a rare trinket in the game.
Shouldn't an item with that much legend behind it be called Legendary? Illidan's twin blades are labeled legendary, but they're hardly the stuff of modern legend-- Illidan took them from a doom guard commander 10,000 years ago, and they've done nothing but sit in his whirling hands since then (heck, they couldn't even take down Arthas). I agree with Scott-- there's no reason those blades should be Legendary when the skull isn't. Sure, the skull might not be as powerful as it used to be, but it's still got a load of legend behind it.
And the Legendary debate isn't over yet, because there is one more big item looming on the horizon: when we head to Northrend, we'll all, Horde and Alliance alike, be looking to find the item that kicked off this Arthas trouble in the first place: Frostmourne. Will that be wieldable by players, or labeled Legendary? If Blizzard's previous experience with Legendary items is any indication, the answer may not be what you expect.
Malygos is a new kind of antagonist for the Warcraft universe in that he's probably the enemy with the least actual evil we've seen so far, in sharp contrast to the Burning Legion, the Scourge, the Old Gods, and a host of others. As we've already noted, some players think he may actually be right: he wants to protect Azerothians from the magic they're dabbling in, for fear that they might end up bringing the Burning Legion back with it, except that he goes about "protecting" the people by waging war on them, which somehow eerily familiar....
Anyway, Malygos is just the latest example of an antagonist in WoW that we can almost sympathize with, a bad guy that isn't all that bad. Malygos' particular place at the other end of our attack buttons can be attributed mainly to his conflicting point of view rather than an evil and corrupted soul. His ultimate aim is still the greater good of all life -- he just believes (wrongfully, we hope) that he needs to destroy the minority of magic users in order to save the remaining majority of all other life on the world.
If you've played Warcraft III, of course, this is all old news, as all these events are actually shown in that game. But if you haven't played Warcraft III (and its expansion, the Frozen Throne), now might be a good time to do so. While the Burning Crusade reflected more old school lore, including the creation of the Orcs and the opening of the Dark Portal, Wrath of the Lich King's history is pretty recent. Yes, Illidan appeared in the expansion, and others in Outland did as well. But since the beginning of Warcraft III, the story has been all about Arthas, and how bad things are done in the name of believed-to-be-good intentions.
With the next expansion, it'll be great to finally return to that story. Of course, my favorite part of Arthas' story is actually the scene that comes after "The Claiming of Frostmourne"-- what Arthas does after he obtains Frostmourne and is corrupted by the Lich King. Echoes of that are still heard (literally) in the world of Azeroth today.
Bornakk announced last night that selected US PvP realms will be given free character moves starting at Noon pacific time today, July 10th, and ending on July 17th. As always, Blizzard does reserve the right to close transfers early once their quotas are met, so be sure to get your transfer request in as early as possible if you plan to move. Once the transfers are open, you can visit the character move page to request a transfer.
Our very own 
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 
Zv of Destromath has an interesting argument on the forums -- he says that Blizzard has overextended themselves, and that by producing everything from 
No, seriously, 
Blizzard has a torrid history with the Legendary items in World of Warcraft. The first such item to raise a stink was probably 
Blizzard has posted Chapter 2 of their little 
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