Go back to school with your Mac, iPhone and TUAW
Posts with tag lightbringer

The Death Knight starting experience


A couple of days ago, it was with a little good fortune and a lot of soul-selling by WoW Insider lead Elizabeth Harper that I finally got my grubby little hands on a precious Beta key. Over 2 Gigabytes worth of installer and patches later, I found myself creating a Death Knight. It is a fair certainty that every player who upgrades to the Wrath of the Lich King will create one. In fact, after playing the class for just a short time, I have to say that every single player should. The Death Knight starting experience is the single most immersive role-playing experience in the game.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not too big on role-playing. I mostly skip quest flavor text and go directly to the objectives. But the Death Knight starting experience -- it's really called that -- is just game design at its finest. Blizzard mentioned that one design flaw in The Burning Crusade was not making Illidan's presence felt early on in the Outlands. In fact, aside from the raiders who managed to set foot in the 25-man raids, a large number of the player base never got to see the bad guys driving the story of The Burning Crusade. Well... when you play a Death Knight, you won't just feel the lore, it punches you in the face and knocks you off your feet the moment you log into the game for the first time.

Continue reading The Death Knight starting experience

8-Piece Sets Return With Patch 2.4 (kind of...)

The frantic folk at MMO Champion are digging up major loot finds in the upcoming Patch 2.4, including what appears to be new Tier 6 pieces -- boots, bracers, and belts. These pieces can be obtained by exchanging tokens that likely drop from Sunwell Plateau. This marks an unexpected return to eight-piece sets hearkening back to the days of Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and even Naxxramas (although Tier 3 was officially 9 pieces). Despite the additions, however, the item previews don't appear to show any new bonuses beyond the existing 4-piece bonuses for Tier 6. This comes as a moderate surprise considering Blizzard has said in the past that they liked the 5-piece set format. On the other hand, it's probably a good thing considering there is no official Tier 7, and these pieces cater to set completists as well as giving more flexibility in obtaining (or keeping) the set bonuses.

On an interesting note, the Tier 6 Lightbringer's Battlegear or the Paladin Retribution boots, bracers, and belt show hints of what the patch notes state as "Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result." We can see from MMO Champion's screenshot that the raid set has scrapped Spell Damage -- similar to the Vengeful Gladiator's Vindication of Arena Season 3 -- in favor of Haste rating. If all other Tier 6 Retribution pieces -- or even better, all other Burning Crusade Tier set pieces -- will be retroactively changed to remove Spell Damage and add Haste rating, it means a massive DPS upgrade for Retribution Paladins as promised. After all, Retribution Paladin DPS is basically auto-attack plus.

WoW Moviewatch: The story so far


It seems more clear than ever that we're headed to Northrend in the next expansion. And so, via our good friends at Joystiq, here's a little refresher from the last time we were there.

That's our buddy Arthas, wielding Frostmourne and meeting up with (and becoming, most likely) the Lich King during the very last cutscene of Warcraft III. That building he's hanging out in is Icecrown Citadel, which will very likely be a raid dungeon at some point in WoW. The voice saying, "Forget this business" is Muradin Bronzebeard, and the voice questioning Arthas' sanity is Uther the Lightbringer himself, whom Arthas murdered (and whose tomb is found right now in the Western Plaguelands). And of course as far as we know, Arthas is still sitting on that throne, ready to appear.. in a brand new cinematic on Friday at BlizzCon?

Excited yet?

Update: My fault, I thought both voices were Uther. Should have realized no Human would ever have an accent like that.

PvE to PvP Realm Transfers?

Because I do not play on any of the affected servers, the fact that Blizzard has opened up PvE to PvP realm transfers was not immediately obvious to me.  Hyjal, Lightbringer, Shadowsong, Zul'jin, Alleria , Hellscream, and Whisperwind are all PvE servers, and have recently been given the opportunity to transfer to new PvP servers Black Dragonflight and Dalvengyr.  This is interesting, primarily because Blizzard has, in the past, always kept realm transfers within their realm type.  So these new transfers will allow seasoned players from old PvE servers a taste of the excitement of PvP without the difficulty that faces most players who wish to make such a switch - rerolling and releveling. 

Two New Transfer Realms

Starting on Monday, April 10th, at 3:00 AM PST, players on Hyjal, Lightbringer, Shadowsong, Zul'jin, Alleria, Khaz'goroth, Hellscream, and Whisperwind will have the option to transfer to new PvP servers Black Dragonflight (Hyjal, Lightbringer, Shadowsong, and Zul'jin) and Dalvengyr (Alleria, Khaz'goroth, Hellscream, and Whisperwind).  Transfers will close on Thursday, April 13th, so if you're interested in making the jump, do it as soon as possible.


RESOURCES

Blizzard Events
BlizzCon (310)
Worldwide Invitational (119)
Class Columns
(Death Knight) Lichborne (9)
(Druid) Shifting Perspectives (55)
(Hunter) Big Red Kitty (62)
(Hunter) Scattered Shots (33)
(Mage) Arcane Brilliance (58)
(Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It (60)
(Priest) Spiritual Guidance (39)
(Rogue) Encrypted Text (43)
(Shaman) Totem Talk (66)
(Warlock) Blood Pact (37)
(Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors (70)
Gameplay
(Arena PvP) Blood Sport (33)
(BG PvP) The Art of War(craft) (33)
(Casual) WoW, Casually (25)
(Guild Leadership) Officers' Quarters (76)
(Professions) Insider Trader (76)
(Raiding) Ready Check (35)
(Roleplaying) All the World's a Stage (57)
AddOns and UI
AddOn Spotlight (100)
Reader UI of the Week (30)
The Creamy GUI Center (20)
Lore and Stories
Around Azeroth (623)
Ask A Lore Nerd (21)
Barrens Chat (22)
Know your Lore (67)
WoW Moviewatch (610)
Features
15 Minutes of Fame (38)
Ask WoW Insider (70)
Breakfast topics (820)
Forum Post of the Day (60)
Guildwatch (95)
It came from the Blog (29)
Phat Loot Phriday (104)
The Colosseum (9)
World of WarCrafts (38)
WoW Crossword (9)
WoW Insider Show (97)
WoW Rookie (42)
[1.Local] (21)
Classes
Death Knight (213)
Druid (399)
Hunter (405)
Mage (233)
Paladin (389)
Priest (320)
Rogue (219)
Shaman (345)
Warlock (246)
Warrior (292)
News
Account Security (36)
AddOns (291)
Analysis / Opinion (4046)
Blizzard (1971)
Bugs (234)
Burning Crusade (411)
Contests (295)
Economy (214)
Events (547)
Expansions (994)
Fan stuff (1103)
Features (758)
Forums (361)
Guilds (544)
Hardware (68)
Humor (961)
Interviews (206)
Lore (400)
Mounts (187)
News items (1889)
NPCs (261)
Odds and ends (1909)
Patches (1318)
Podcasting (93)
Ranking (57)
Realm News (323)
Realm Status (274)
RP (201)
Rumors (81)
Virtual selves (788)
WoW Insider Business (359)
WoW Social Conventions (196)
WoW TCG (69)
Wrath of the Lich King (1220)
Strategy
Achievements (55)
Alts (144)
Arena (331)
Battlegrounds (200)
Bosses (419)
Buffs (177)
Cheats (83)
Classes (426)
Enchants (44)
Factions (197)
Guides (484)
How-tos (462)
Instances (774)
Items (1012)
Leveling (382)
Making money (237)
PvP (901)
Quests (420)
Raiding (902)
Talents (266)
Tips (659)
Tricks (245)
Walkthroughs (97)
Media
Comics (114)
Fan art (70)
Galleries (320)
Machinima (700)
Podcasts (56)
Polls (80)
Screenshots (790)
Races
Alliance (143)
Draenei (77)
Dwarves (29)
Gnomes (63)
Human (31)
Night Elves (65)
Horde (149)
Blood Elves (77)
Orcs (40)
Tauren (67)
Trolls (33)
Undead (37)
Professions
Alchemy (97)
Blacksmithing (84)
Cooking (88)
Enchanting (93)
Engineering (132)
First Aid (21)
Fishing (74)
Herbalism (62)
Inscription (51)
Jewelcrafting (103)
Leatherworking (78)
Mining (55)
Skinning (35)
Tailoring (88)
Retired
Pimp My Profile (1)
(Engineering) Hoof and Horn Research and Development (17)
(Raid Healing) Raid Rx (20)
(Raiding) Raiding 101 (2)
About the Bloggers (29)
Azeroth Interrupted (24)
Azeroth Security Advisor (4)
Back In The Day (3)
Build Shop (37)
Gamers on the Street (25)
He Said She Said (5)
Hybrid Theory (25)
Illusionary Tactics (3)
Macro Anatomy (15)
New Players' Guide (4)
Reader WoWspace of the week (32)
Tales from the Lion's Pride Inn (14)
Tank Talk (10)
Two Bosses Enter (61)
Well Fed Buff (31)
World Wide WoW (8)
/silly (14)

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

Featured Galleries

BlizzCon 2008 Retro Arcade
BlizzCon 2008 Art Gallery
BlizzCon 2008: Costume Contest
BlizzCon 2008 UI panel
BlizzCon 2008: Wrath of the Lich King
BlizzCon 2008 Costumes
Blizzcon 2008: General floor gallery
WoW Insider Reader Meetup Gallery
BlizzCon 2008 Badge Pickup

 

Most Commented On (30 days)

Recent Comments

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: