At this point, the thread that inspired today's breakfast topic is, itself, pretty old-school, but anyway, here's the question: What is the most obscure old-school thing you remember? The OP's contribution is when he looted a BoP axe in his first instance, thinking he could give it to a friend, but he is quickly trumped by the second poster: dwarf mages.
As for me, I have a pretty terrible memory, but I do dimly recollect taking tailoring on my first character, a Hunter, because I'd heard about shirts and they sounded cool. But that fits more in the "noob" category than "old-school" proper. Inner Fire raising attack power and not having charges? Throwing weapons that couldn't have their quantity refreshed? Reck bombs? Decursive? I haven't been playing since beta or anything, so none of this is too crazy. What's your favorite memory of WoW past?
Many thanks to Tisen for tipping off the late night WoW Insider crew that Gamespy will be releasing new Wrath of the Lich King info in about an hour from now – at 12:01 a.m. PST. We'll get it reported to you as soon as we see it. Stay tuned for updates. Their entire announcement reads: You're going to want to stay tuned until the midnight here on GameSpy.com. At 12:01AM PST we'll be flooding the site with all-new World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King materials. New movies, media, a preview, a roundtable, two interviews and a look at the Death Knight. Enough for ya?
I have to admit, this is a little strange for it to be posted this late... but I've seen stranger things. More info as it comes in. Update 12:05 a.m. PDT: No info yet. Though their website still says it's "Thursday." We're expecting something soon.
Update 12:07 a.m. PDT: Bornakk is up late and posted " They aren't the only ones..." in response to WotLK info being released tonight. More to come apparently. Update 12:09 a.m. PDT: News is incoming, possibly from multiple sources, look for more posts soon.
Hortus just posted that the PTR server for patch 2.4.2 has been taken down, and that the PTR phase for the patch has ended. This is a strong indicator that patch 2.4.2 is on its way soon, perhaps during some expected maintenance tomorrow.
Take a look at the official and un-official notes for a comprehensive look at what will change. Nothing in the patch is game-breaking, in my opinion, but there are some nice changes. Some of the major highlights include:
Void Shatter no longer has a cooldown, and other cooldowns have been reduced.
If you are sheeped / polymorphed by a mob, you will no longer gain back health (ie: the mass sheep in Aran, which regens your health before he fire blasts the raid).
Many main hand weapons are now one hand weapons.
WoW Insider will carry the latest on the patch, including as soon as we know when it's set to go live. Stay tuned!
Edit 3:24 p.m. EDT: It should be noted that the final version of the patch notes have not been released yet, however they are usually close to what the PTR patch notes are.
There have been lots of little bits of news and information coming out about Wrath of the Lich King lately. With the World Wide Invitational 2008 just around the corner where WotLK will be playable again for us all, and the news that Wrath is in alpha, we can expect to see more and more come out about the game.
With this expectation of the beta and eventual release building, a lot of people are getting excited about different things. So I want to know, what are you most excited about?
For me, I'm most excited about seeing the new end game raid content. I'm with a very dedicated group of raiders right now who do about 20 hours a week of raiding, and it's a lot of fun. Hopefully we'll all still be around in WotLK and get to push into the new content quickly and with a lot of zeal.
Then there is the Death Knight. Who isn't thrilled at the chance to play a new class? We haven't ever seen a new class in WoW, and it's bound to throw a wrench in the way a lot of folks play the game. Seeing the Death Knight get integrated into raiding will be a very interesting thing to watch.
Kupoccino sent us a tip earlier today about a video that's posted over on a German site about WotLK. In the video a level one Warrior walks up the throne of Arthas and purchases a sword from a stone – a sword that appears to be Frostmourne.
The video is a fake, and has graphics elements and game elements, such as the bags, that are indicative of a private server. Additionally Kuoccino points out to me in a later email that the steps are really benches from the Undercity, and that the throne is from the Undercity as well. I'm inclined to agree with him.
Normally I wouldn't post something like this, but it's a good example of how far people are willing to go to try to get a scoop on WotLK. Also, as Mike Schramm pointed out on the podcast this afternoon, now is about the time that we'll start to see more leaked WotLK information. The alpha is going on, and the beta is a few months away - this is prime time for leaks to happen.
Now of course, there is the remotest of remote possibilities that this video is real. If there is even a smidgen of truthiness in here, my hat is off to the person that got this.
If you've got any WotLK screenshots, real or fake, hop on over to our tip line and send away! We're always on the lookout for a good thing! We just reserve the right to laugh and cackle if you send us fakes.
Reader Ian C. wrote in with an interesting thought. He says that if he was offered a spot in the Wrath of the Lich King beta tomorrow, he'd probably decline. With the news that the expansion is in alpha and that an open beta is probably not too far off, it seems like everyone and their brother wants in early to Northrend. But not Ian -- he says that he'd rather experience the content on the live realms.
And I mostly agree. I never played in the BC beta, and generally I like to stay away from the PTR if possible -- any progress that you make on test or beta realms is completely lost when the beta closes, and while yes, there are some fun reasons to jump onto the PTR or a beta realm, I'd rather experience the content as its meant to be played when it comes out.
Everyone else might be excited to see the beta, and of course we'll have lots of information as it comes out about Wrath (which means if I'm invited to the beta, I'll probably load it up just to see what's there and try out the Death Knight mechanics), but playing on a beta realm isn't the real thing. Any progress you make there is more or less a waste of time -- I'd rather see Northrend in a finished form, through my character on the live realms.
Blizzard has released tonight the patch notes for patch 2.4.2, which means the PTR will probably be up and running sometime soon. Patch 2.4 will likely be the last major patch before Wrath of the Lich King, and we expect to see a couple more of these minor patches before WotLK comes out.
Void Shatter no longer has a cooldown, and other cooldowns have been reduced.
Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid wipes during his death speech.
If you are sheeped / polymorphed by a mob, you will no longer gain back health (ie: the mass sheep in Aran, which regens your health before he fire blasts the raid). This is a potentially large change.
Many main hand weapons are now one hand weapons.
A good list of bug fixes, including several problems associated with sounds.
Full patch notes for your convenience after the break!
A poster on the mmo-champion forums has found several leaked screenshots from the alpha of Wrath of the Lich King. While not all screenshots the original poster produced are real, WoW Insider has learned from an inside source that a number of them are very similar to what the actual alpha looks like and appear to be legitimate. While this isn't an official confirmation from Blizzard, it is about as good as we'll get for any leaked screenshot for the time being.
The images are of various places around what looks to be Utgarde Keep. Additionally, there is a very real looking screenshot of the alpha installation package. Sources tell me this is very close to what is on the docket at Blizzard, again lending credibility to these leaks.
Stay tuned to WoW Insider for all the latest Wrath of the Lich King information. Click the gallery below to see the full leaked sets.
Updated 12:53 a.m. EDT: Login screen was a fake. Removed. However, other screenshots still stand up with our sources. Thanks to Aichon, Kyraa, and our sources for helping clear up which images are real and which are fake.
Updated 11:00 p.m. EDT April 21st: Most of these images came from Two Hammers over at Gamebunny from his Blizzcon 2007 trip. However, still good screenies for people to enjoy.
Right now there is no WotLKbeta, there is no chance you'll get in the alpha if you're not already in it, and there is no email that's going to be coming to your inbox anytime soon about it. But when it comes, it's going to make you one happy gamer. This is a very important thing for people to understand, especially with the flood of fake emails lately.
Blizzard will make an announcement on their forums and/or their homepage letting all of us know that WotLK beta invites are going out. The email that you'll get if you're lucky enough to get invited will be sent from an @blizzard.com address, will come through the blizzard.com servers (you can check the extended email headers in your email program to see this). The email will have tons of identifiable information in it that only points to blizzard.com or worldofwarcraft.com and nowhere else.
For a reference, let's that a look at what the Burning Crusade beta email looked like that I got back in 2006
Unfortunately, we're not talking about the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. Instead, we're talking about the new Latin American Spanish version of World of Warcraft. Eyonix announced yesterday that the Beta Test has begun. You can download the language pack here, the FAQ is located here, and Q&A Representatives will be on hand on the official forums here to answer questions and address problems during the test.
Good luck to all you Cazadores of bad grammar and misused language, Guerreros for the cause of South American servers, and all the rest who'll be testing this out.
Howling Fjord will be one of the two starting points for those entering into Northrend. The other starting zone will be the Borean Tundra. Wrath of the Lich King will raise the level cap to 80, introduce the Death Knight class, new PvP warfare, and new group and solo play.
WoWWiki has the image listed as a "player made" image. However, the image itself has been found around several other galleries on the internet, and there is no credit to the original author on the image. Additionally, the map itself closely resembles the terrain and layout of the zone that was playable at Blizzcon in 2007. We'll keep an eye on this, and other Wrath of the Lich King media that might be legit, and get you all the latest information when we know it. Stay tuned!
Update: The map is a fake, produced and propagated by user Kanaru on WoWWiki. Welcome to the World of Fakecraft.
More news for all you hungry Wrath of the Lich King fans out there. The test realm forum has been taken offline and is showing as undergoing a change, although we don't know what that is just yet. The exact submessage is "The forum you're trying to access is not ready." This is significant for a couple reasons.
First, the test realm forum is usually left up for a while after the patch so folks have some place to go and reference everything that was learned during the beta. I know that I've used the forum for up to a month to go and get necessary information.
Secondly, this comes less than a day after the World of Warcraft beta site experienced a change. When getting public releases of software ready, it's often a process of "First, get the site going – but don't link it to the public. Second, take down the public systems and get them ready." This is quite possibly what we're seeing here.
Finally, this forum always goes down before something beta-ish is released. This could mean they're just clearing it to implement a 2.4.2 release or something, but I doubt that given they've usually only cleared it for major point release. Ie: 2.2, 2.3, 2.4.
An interesting tid bit of WotLK news for you all this morning. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that within a month we'll see some major announcements concerning the next expansion.
Alright, this is only the ghost of a hint, but at this point I'll take what I can get with anything that looks reminiscent of a Wrath of the Lich King beta. A tipster known only as "Anonymous" wrote in to let us know that the URL http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com is active, and redirects to http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/game/character-copy.html. The logical conclusion is that this page is meant to let (authorized) people transfer characters for some sort of beta. And what's coming up that might be beta-tested? Wrath.
Right now, the address returns a "403 Forbidden" page, but obviously, someone at Blizzard HQ bothered to set up the "beta" subdomain and make it redirect to something. Any address on beta.worldofwarcraft.com seems to redirects to that "character-copy" page. Remember, a "forbidden" URL was our first real confirmation that Wrath of the Lich King was going to be the title of the expansion, so we've gotten information this way before. There's still no telling how long it'll take until a beta is available to us, as this page may well just apply to an interior beta, but this might be a clue that we're getting closer. Does this mean there won't be a patch 2.5?
Good evening ladies and gentlemen (cue the WoW Insider Show intro music). For tonight's entertainment, I present to you a fully functional PTR – complete with Sunwell Plateau and lots of goodies to play around with. Well, at least it's evening if you're up with me at 3:00 a.m. when I'm posting this.
But even if you're not a night owl, now is probably your last chance to head over to the PTR and test out all the goodness that is patch 2.4. Blizzard had shut it down until now, possibly to just test out one or two other things before releasing the patch soon. My bet is still on March 25th. I have no little birdie in my ear saying that's a for sure thing, but I just have this gut feeling I'm right. If you've participated in the guess the release date contest, you might be under a week away from winning a nice 60 day game card.
I had to apply a couple of patches when logging onto the game tonight. It only took about 10 minutes though. Not too bad. We've looked over the patch notes and in-game items and can't find anything different – although perhaps there are some changes we're overlooking. However with that said, often times Blizzard will make the "undocumented" changes on the PTR right before they release the live patch. Who knows what those are...
The Tournament Test Realm outside of the Orc starting area.
We've been covering the Tournament Test Realm (TTR) lately, especially the stress test tomorrow between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. PST. It's going to be a lot of fun I'm sure – assuming the server can stay up.
And the best part about it all?
WoW Insider will be there in force! The TTR team from WoW Insider will include folks like myself, Amanda Dean, Amanda Miller, Alex Ziebart, and other writers. We'll be there trying to be king of the hill during the arena tests. Our team name is "WoW Insider" (creative, huh?) and we'll be fighting FOR the Horde.
So grab your sword and fight us Horde! Come on over and join the fun - and if you happen to hit us in battle, don't forget to take a screen shot of us standing victoriously over your dead bodies! ;-)
At this point, the thread that inspired today's breakfast topic is, itself, pretty old-school, but anyway, here's the question: What is the most obscure old-school thing you remember? The OP's contribution is when he looted a BoP axe in his first instance, thinking he could give it to a friend, but he is quickly trumped by the second poster: dwarf mages.
Many thanks to Tisen for tipping off the late night WoW Insider crew that 
There have been lots of little bits of news and information coming out about 
Reader Ian C. wrote in with an interesting thought. He says that if he was offered a spot in the 
Check out more information on WoW's upcoming expansion, 
Right now there is no 
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