This isn't the first time we've heard about putting a built-in threat meter in the standard World of Warcraft interface. The idea came up back at Blizzcon 07, and Neth confirmed plans to include such a meter in February '08. But there's not been much discussion about the idea since then. Today, Bornakk confirmed they're still working on it, but there's obviously no details to be shared yet. ("Soon," and all that.) So, while we don't know that we'll be seeing the threat meter with the release of Wrath of the Lich King, at least we know it's probably still coming eventually.
Threat meters are almost entirely a mandatory requirement for most raids. The two big ones are KTM and Omen, of course. It lets your DPS know when to let off the gas a bit, before they pull aggro off the tank. Or, maybe, tells the tanks they need to push the pedal harder and build up more of their own threat instead of limiting the DPS. I can't imagine raiding without one, and if that's the state of things for enough players, I expect Blizzard will take it over themselves soon enough.
Nethaera posted in the beta forums that the NDA for the Wrath of the Lich King Alpha has been lifted. In response to a question asking if people could share things from the Alpha, Neth says "Feel free to discuss at will." This is great news for everyone that wants to talk about the alpha material legally. Those who've been part of the Alpha will get to post troves of information and stories that they've collected. I'm sure some of them will be going up on WoW Insider soon enough, and these will only expand as beta invites become more active.
The Alpha NDA was a source of tension for a lot of people, especially those in the Alpha. Several set up or contributed to sites like DeathKnight.info and WotlkWiki.com. It was very difficult, if not impossible, for Blizzard to enforce the NDA. However they were successful in forcing WotLKWiki.com to relocate.
It will be interesting to see what the repercussions of the lifted NDA end up to be. One thing is for sure though, and that's that we're starting to see new and exciting information about WotLK come out minute by minute. Stay tuned!
Nethaera has just come out and said that the beta selection process will be random. This is important for all of us to know: there will be no precedence or order associated with the opt-in. What does this mean? It means even if you sign up tomorrow you have a chance to get in, and that all of us who rushed to sign up when it just opened get no real benefit.
Neth also lets us know that there are no beta emails going out just yet - and that they will "try" to let us know when they start sending out legitimate emails.
We want to reiterate again: be careful with the email scams. They will be flying around today like wildfire. Don't get caught up in one. Read our handy guide on how to keep yourself safe for more information.
We're all understandably hyped for Wrath of the Lich King, and a lot of us are watching the leaked alpha testing information closely. Forum-goer Zaggaroth is looking a little more forward. He's asking the question: How do you get into the closed beta testing?
Nethaera steps in to answer his question, and shed some candlelight. Blizzard pulls its beta testers from "many places." Some folks win a contest, others are random, while still others are the result of specific targeting -- they want that particular demographic of player represented in the testing. They don't pick only the most experienced players, which makes sense when you consider the game's for everyone and not just the elitest of the elite.
Neth wraps up her posting by saying Blizzard's not yet determined if there'll be some kind of application for the beta, and that it'll all depend on what the developers want when that time comes around. I'd guess they've done some thinking on this subject. But in some vocabularies, alpha testing just means "a development phase." We're probably still a little ways off from the closed beta. Edit: Added a link to the thread in question, in addition to the Source link below.
While we've gotten tid bits of information here and there from Blizzard posts over the past few months, the news has been relatively dry with regards to any official announcements about Wrath of the Lich King. We know that it's in alpha testing, and we've had a bit of fun with some screenshots. But that's about it.
Nethaera tells us that the development is coming along really well, which we've all heard before. However in her typical witty fashion she also gives us this gem of a line, in response to people calling WotLK vapor-ware:
"The great thing about vapor is that at some point it condenses and becomes rain. The rain then falls and nourishes that which it falls on. It takes time for it to happen, but it does happen. Signs point to clouds forming in the sky, but you never can tell when they will let loose the rain..."
Take that for what you will, but I read it pretty squarely as "Some major WotLK news is on its way." And that is news in and of itself.
We've been preparing for the stress test, are mostly gemmed and enchanted up, and are looking to fight! I'll be updating this post as things happen, hopefully with riveting tales of victory and triumph over Alliance Care Bears. (Kidding of course, my main is an Human warrior.)
Read on after the break for the updates! We'll keep this front page only for things that are affecting everyone.
Updated 5:23 p.m. PST: Live blogging wrapped up for the day. Many many thanks to all the fans and GMs out there! It was a great day with lots of cool stuff happening. More analysis over the next couple days!
Everyone's favorite candle has some news for us about the PTR. She reveals that the development team is changing the way they test by adding content progressively to this patch, and changing the patch notes to match. As the testing goes on, they may add or remove test notes or various functions they wish to test.
At this least, this could make monitoring the PTR process exciting as we try to figure out what Blizzard may add and take away. In addition, although Blizzard has said that they don't plan any major classes changes, this might mean that we can still hope for the tweaking of some abilities. Nethaera's already made it known that she's watching a few well constructed shaman threads about the changes to the class or lack thereof, at least.
In other news, Bornakk has updated his post on International PTRs with the news that Blizzard now plans to make the servers accessible over multiple regions for 2.4.0 only. So unfortunately, if you were planning any raiding or PvP tourneys to see which region reigns supreme, all bets may be off.
With this new progressive testing announcement, we'll be sure to keep an eye on the notes for you and tell you as soon as we see any changes, so keep us in mind here at WoW Insider for your patch news needs.
In a silly thread in the Druid forums asking whether the druids would get a "dark form" to go along with the Death Knight being a dark version of the Paladin (which it...sort of is, I guess), US CM Nethaera dropped a few interesting pieces of DK information.
[when asked if DKs will start at level 55, instead of 60 or 70] That is the current thinking. It could still be subject to change though and is not concrete. We're still toying with ideas of how we want to make it all work. We want people to feel like they are learning not only the how's of becoming a Death Knight from the lore perspective, but also how to play one.
[More character slots?] Undetermined as of yet. We'll let people know when we know more.
[...the current feeling is that a player with any class over 55 (or whatever the level ends up being) will be able to unlock Death Knight? ] yes. That is our current thinking.
[asked about balance] It is going to be balanced against other classes and will not be able to stomp everyone else just because it's a Death Knight. Yes, they will be powerful but in their own unique way. What makes it a Hero class is that it is from Warcraft lore as a Hero class and also you will get access to it at a higher level. Any race can be a Death Knight in our current thinking as well since the path to corruption can be founded with good intentions much like what happened to Arthas.
[How many abilities will DKs start with?] Undetermined as of yet. We're still fleshing a lot of things out. This is another reason we caution people about the perception that the expansion is coming out 'too soon'. We have only shown people the tip of the iceberg and have a lot more that we are still working out and planning for. Once we have more details, we'll be sharing them so people can discuss it more and plan for the future.
So there's a lot of "not sure yet" in that post, but there's also some good information, notably that they currently think DKs will start at level 55. That's a bit lower than I would have expected. 58 or 60 would make more sense, in my opinion, in order to be able to start out in Outland (but then again, does that make sense lore-wise?). So how excited are you about Death Knights? Are they your main reason to buy Wrath? The change that will kill WoW?
Eona from Durotan saw a picture of Drysc (perhaps via that very helpful faces of BlizzCon guide yesterday), and determined something that might surprise you: the CMs are people after all. Who knew?
But seriously, I've always kind of felt for the CMs-- they're given the responsibility of transmitting messages to the community without actually being given all the information. There might be all kinds of good reasons that your class buff didn't show up in the patch, and yet while they may even know some of them, the CMs can't just say it was because the devs wanted to wait until the Northrend expansion, or because they clashed with something you'll find when the actual patch is released in a few days, or because this really amazing item that hasn't dropped yet makes it irrelevant anyway. At times, Drysc, Neth, Eyonix, and all the rest can seem like the Iraqi Information Minister, but more often than not, I'd guess they're just not allowed to tell us the whole story.
So if you do see the CMs at Blizzcon, suppress that urge to run up and ask them why Shaman clearcasting got nerfed. Instead, give them a hug show them your support in a completely nonphysical and nonthreatening way. Because while the CMs may play as NPCs, apparently they really are people too.
This forums thread points out something interesting about player "guardians." Not pets-- guardians like Shadowfiend (which a priest I know called his shadowfriend), the druids' treants, and my shaman's totem elementals. After players wonder why shadowfiends keep breaking shackles, Neth says something that made me do a double-take: shadowfiends, as guardians, have an actual AI that is supposed to go after non crowd-controlled targets first.
That's news to me. I haven't spent a ton of time around shadowfiends, but in my experience, shaman and mage elementals and other "uncontrollable" pets (that's why they're called guardians) tend to go after anything that happens to be close to them. That's why they don't get popped when there's sheep or shackles around-- my guild could have used that fire elemental DPS on Moroes, but because it was so important to keep those shackles up, I've been saving the elemental for later. If there really is an AI (and if it works-- even Neth agrees that may not be the case at this point, though she says the shadowfiends on the PTR are supposed to be doing things right), then maybe we can start trusting summoned guardians not to touch CC'd targets until it's OK to do so.
Of course, there's other ways around it-- normally, I just don't pop my pets out until I'm sure there's no more CC left to break, but my pets are leashed to my totem, so with careful positioning, I can still avoid CC. And I believe both mage and druid guardians are targeted-- they open fire on whatever you've got targeted at the time, right? But I'd love a little AI, or at least a little control, in something like my Searing Totem. If there's a CC'd target out there, it's not worth the trouble to drop it even for the extra DPS.
This isn't the first time we've heard about putting a built-in threat meter in the standard World of Warcraft interface. The idea came up back at Blizzcon 07, and Neth confirmed plans to include such a meter in February '08. But there's not been much discussion about the idea since then. Today, Bornakk confirmed they're still working on it, but there's obviously no details to be shared yet. ("Soon," and all that.) So, while we don't know that we'll be seeing the threat meter with the release of Wrath of the Lich King, at least we know it's probably still coming eventually.
Nethaera
We're all understandably hyped for 
While we've gotten tid bits of information here and there from 
We've been preparing for the stress test, are mostly gemmed and enchanted up, and are looking to fight! I'll be updating this post as things happen, hopefully with riveting tales of victory and triumph over Alliance Care Bears. (Kidding of course, my main is an Human warrior.)
Eona from Durotan saw a picture of Drysc (perhaps via that very helpful 
This forums thread
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