By now you have surely heard of the new Achievements system set up for Wrath of the Lich King. While this will finally give collectors an extra incentive and reward, players are a bit worried about their bag space.
It was announced recently that non-combat pets and mounts would take up no bag space in Wrath, and instead, the item that currently houses the pet will serve to teach you a spell for summoning the pet, and then disappear. While this is a huge weight off of the shoulders of many players, when reading through the current list of Achievements, one begins to wonder where all of their tabards, battleground tokens, badges, holiday items, epics, trinkets, and the like are going to go.
Although we don't have information regarding the storage of every item we'll soon be collecting, Tigole made the following statement:
Your bags will be ok. I promise. Pets, Mounts, Heroic Badges, BG Tokens are all getting storage space.
I wonder how badges and tokens are getting storage space. Surely, they cannot be turned into spells, and I don't have room for bags specifically dedicated to only one or the other, so I'm definitely interested to know what they have up their sleeves, and if any other collectible items will get similar treatment.
The Path of Illidan, which is a super common loot card (like the Pet Biscuits), and will enable players to leave glowing green footprints around Azeroth and Outland as they walk around.
D.I.S.C.O., which creates a disco party anywhere, along with a disco ball, lights, and music.
And finally, most interesting, the Ethereal Soul-trader, who is a full-size Ethereal as a pet. Additionally, this card is actually a whole slew of items in one -- the Soul-trader will give you currency for creatures killed while summoned, which can then be traded off for other prizes, including special foodstuffs, a special alcoholic drink, a ball of energy (to throw in people's bags and play catch with), and even the Ethereal's outfits as wearable items.
Pretty incredible. Upper Deck is hosting a preview of the next expansion on Saturday at various locations around the country, and the cards will be out, as we said, on July 1st. The Spectral Tiger Mount was great, but I think we have a new loot card winner with the Soul-trader. A mobile NPC with their own currency gained from killing mobs? Yes please.
Beckett Media is a company normally known for their collectible magazines -- they cover things like baseball cards, Yu-Gi-Oh, toys, and all of that other junk most people don't bother with (ok, ok, I kid, collectors, but I don't get the point of buying toys you don't take out of the box). Apparently, a little while back, Beckett started to get into another field where most of what you do is collecting: massively multiplayer online games, and they started a magazine called Beckett Massive Online Gamer. And now, they've started publishing a series of biannual guides for various online games, starting with our very own World of Warcraft.
We haven't seen the guide, but their sales page promises "tips for conquering dungeons, guides for leveling to 70," and "perfecting WoW endgame classes," all for only $9.99. To tell the truth, it sounds pretty lame (not to mention that you can get exactly the same stuff right here for the low, low price of free), but at least there's another print competitor to the official Brady Guides -- if you absolutely need your WoW news in print form, you've got at least two choices now.
Anyone seen one of these yet? Next time you're at the collectibles store, see if they've got one sitting on the magazine shelf and let us know what it looks like.
As I was perusing the very first review of Grand Theft Auto 4 yesterday, I noted that the "collectibles" in that game are going to be pretty intriguing. While a lot of collectible items in games (say, all the packages in the previous GTA games, or the flags in Assassin's Creed) are fairly superfluous, I find that some (like the orbs in Crackdown and the billboards and jumps in Burnout Paradise) actually make the game more fun -- while traveling through the game world, you can keep an eye out for extra stuff to do and see.
World of Warcraft has never really jumped in on that idea, however. Obviously, there are plenty of collecting quests, but usually they're for killing mobs. And there are plenty of things to collect in the game -- noncombat pets, tabards, and mounts, and so on -- but none of them really give you a reward when you find a certain number of them, or give you bonuses based on how many you've picked up.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? For me, hiding some fun, optional collectibles (and giving small rewards based on just finding them) in a world as lush as Azeroth would make exploring an already great environment better. But I'm sure some would see it as a cheap tactic to make people hunt for widgets. What do you think?
When the word "collectibles" comes in to play, the first thing that comes to my mind is those Precious Memories figurines that my Grandmother collected. However, I think that you'll find these World of Warcraft collect ables (they're not action figures -- they're designed to look awesome, not move around) produced by DC Direct to be much more appealing. They're incredibly detailed figures for which IGN's preview has nothing but praise:
What impressed us the most were some of the finer details like the ritual scarring on the orc's chest or the blood on his fangs. DC was very careful to incorporate a strong level of "grit", ensuring that the figure has a strong degree of realism and avoiding the "fake toy" look that can plague a collectible. Other details like the eyes, mouth interior and clothing texture really help seal the deal.
IGN has a great photo gallery if you want to check out these things for yourself and DC's page has a nice collection of pictures to flip through, as well. Series 1 of these figures should find their way to a store near you starting on October 24th, while Series 2 (including the figure to the right) won't be out until Feburary 2008.
Most of our news of late has been about BlizzCon, but as anyone interested in comics knows the mother of all comic conventions began today in San Diego, Comi Con. Blizzplanet today posted about one little bit of WoW-related news released at the convention today: the first in a series of WoW sculptures. This particular sculpture is based on that spectacular mural we saw at the first BlizzCon (okay, so maybe this story is related to BlizzCon after all) featuring the battle between a Blood Elf and a Draenei.
This series of sculptures, created by Sideshow Collectibles, will be available next year, so we have a while to wait, but the images sure are amazing. I'm not one for statue collections, but I will definitely have to pick this one up, especially considering the collector's edition will feature a Nether Whelp.
I was never able to collect any of the Darkmoon cards (although I'm pretty sure I have six or seven of the Warlords cards sitting in my Warrior's bank), but I always thought they were a great idea. Since the expansion, however, the old cards haven't been quite up to par for level 70s. Enter the new Darkmoon decks-- Blue announced a little while ago that there would be new cards to collect, and now Tiare has compiled what the new Darkmoon trinkets will do for you when completed.
[Darkmoon Card: Vengeance] (Ace - Eight of Storms) You have a 10% chance when hit by an attack or harmful spell to deal 95 to 115 holy damage to your attacker.
[Darkmoon Card: Wrath] (Ace - Eight of Furies) Each time one of your direct damage attacks does not critically strike, you gain 17 critical strike rating and 17 spell critical strike rating for the next 10 sec. This effect is consumed when you deal a critical strike. (Stacks up to 20 times)
[Darkmoon Card: Crusade] (Ace - Eight of Blessings) Each time you deal melee damage to an opponent, you gain 6 attack power for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 20 times. Each time you land a harmful spell on an opponent, you gain 8 spell damage for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 10 times.
[Darkmoon Card: Madness] (Ace - Eight of Lunacy) Each time you land a killing blow on an enemy, you gain the Power of Madness.
Unfortunately, we're not quite sure what "Power of Madness" means-- it could be anything from a simple beserk buff (+Damage and Spell Damage, -Healing recieved), to a shapechange to a Worgen, or even "Opens a portal into the Twisting Nether that periodically summons demonic minions to aid the caster in battle for 14 sec." (at least that's what the rumors say).
But sweet cards nevertheless. The Wrath and Crusade cards look especially cool, but I'm confused about the 10 second limit-- someone with Wrath can supposedly build up to a whopping +340 crit rating, but does that mean they somehow have to hit 20 times (without critting) within 10 seconds? Is that even possible? I don't see it procing more than two or three times before the ten seconds are up or a crit appears.
Fantasy Flight
Games, makers of the WoW series of board games, have commissionas a new line of bronze miniature figures, for all you collectors
& tabletop gaming lovers. Apparently they make the perfect size pieces for playing the WoW board games, but if
you're like me, you'll have your little green army men fighting off the orcs .while defending the kitchen from the
Horde. Too bad you can't paint these up all cool like...
By now you have surely heard of the new Achievements system set up for Wrath of the Lich King. While this will finally give collectors an extra incentive and reward, players are a bit worried about their bag space. 
Beckett Media
As I was perusing 
I was never able to collect any of the Darkmoon cards (although I'm pretty sure I have six or seven of the Warlords cards sitting in my Warrior's bank), but I always thought they were a great idea. Since the expansion, however, the old cards haven't been quite up to par for level 70s. Enter the new Darkmoon decks-- 
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