Joystiq has your stash of criminally complete GTA IV news!
Posts with tag rumor

Rumor: Wrath of the Lich King box revealed


Tipster Nigel sent in these curious-looking photos of what appears to be the packaging for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. We've already gotten wind of the possible packaging for a Collector's Edition, so why not the basic box? Apparently, the person who leaked the Collector's Edition photo is still working at the printing press and puts his cell phone camera back to work with these photos of the regular edition.

Could it be the real thing? I'm not so sure myself, but if they're fake, they're pretty good ones. The box design includes clever elements that I didn't consider were I to make a mock-up myself... such as a small disclaimer stating that the game requires The Burning Crusade. The layout of the box closely resembles that of the previous expansion, too, with the exact same font used for the words 'expansion set' and identical placement of logos. One of the most telling signs that point to its authenticity, however, was a printer's mark usually found on print material before they're cut (and made into a box). Nigel smartly states that he didn't take the pictures himself. Check out the pic of the inside flap with the telling printer's mark after the jump.

Continue reading Rumor: Wrath of the Lich King box revealed

Server prepares for WotLK...in July

I know that I wasn't the only one that did a double take today when I opened up WoW and saw the "Breaking News" maintenance announcement that included a tidbit about the realm Dreadmaul undergoing hardware upgrades for Wrath of the Lich King.

I find this interesting for several reasons. First, the expansion hasn't even had a release date announced yet and they're already making hardware changes. Now this is obviously a good practice – getting ready for things before hand – but then again, if it's not going to be released in October / November of this year all these hardware changes could be done later and for much cheaper. No matter if you agree with my pricing analysis or not, it is definitely a bit odd to hear about hardware upgrades when the release date hasn't even been made public yet.

Continue reading Server prepares for WotLK...in July

Rumor: Confirmation of Diablo 3 announcement

Diabloii.net is reporting that "reliable inside industry sources" have confirmed that Diablo 3 is the big announcement that will come at WWI on Saturday.

Since Diabloii didn't say that the sources were at Blizzard, I'm skeptical and I still consider it a rumor, not a confirmation. I'm always skeptical of unnamed sources anyway, but in this case, with the secrecy surrounding the announcement and the legal actions coming against other Blizzard ventures, I'm especially dubious. If anyone at Blizzard leaked this information, they'd be found out and fired for sure. If it wasn't someone from Blizzard but rather someone else in the game industry, I wouldn't take what they say with a grain of salt. However, on the chance that this information is correct -- and Diabloii is asserting that it is -- we want to offer it to you so you can make up your own minds.

[Thanks, Conner.]

Season 4 does not begin June 17th

There has been a rumor going around for a few days that arena season 4 will begin on June 17th. I actually heard this in Alterac Valley this weekend when I was plowing through the place with a few friends and tanking Drek and two of his generals.

While lots of folks wish it was different, season 4 will not be starting on the 17th. Drysc said as much today in a blue post, and went on to reiterate that they will still be giving a two week notice of any upcoming season.

Personally, I expect season 4 to start sometime in late July or early August. That gives it about four months of activity until the supposed release of Wrath of the Lich King in November. But even the release of WotLK in November is unconfirmed, and that's just my guess which is no better than any rumor you hear in a battleground. The only official word will come from Blizzard, which we'll have carried here as soon as we hear it.

Alpha: Changes to existing abilities

Some kind soul just dropped by the Wrath alpha wiki and posted a whole slew of purported changes to existing spells and talents, slated for Wrath. I trust these changes even less than the usual alpha information I see floating around (hence the "rumors" category on this post), but other people on that wiki's community do seem to be verifying them. And they do jive with what you can see at this site, for what that's worth. Of course, even if they are really what's showing up in the alpha, they have a long ways and a lot of change to go before Wrath goes live.

There's a lot of interesting, strange, and flat-out unlikely stuff on there. As usual, for the full list of alleged changes go look at the wiki. Here are some of my reactions:

Continue reading Alpha: Changes to existing abilities

Recruit friends, give them levels


File this firmly under "contained in the game files but may not be activated until Wrath if ever," but MMO-Champion has found something very interesting in some error messages contained in the 2.4.2 patch. Currently, the recruit-a-friend functionality (offered from the account management page) is fairly bare-bones. You get a free month if your friend signs up and ends up paying, and they get a free ten-day trial to give them some time to get into the game, but that's about it.

According to these data-mined error messages, that may be set for a change. See for yourself:
  • ERR_REFER_A_FRIEND_DIFFERENT_FACTION = "You cannot grant levels to a character of the opposite faction.";
  • ERR_REFER_A_FRIEND_INSUFFICIENT_GRANTABLE_LEVELS = "You have not earned enough levels to grant any more levels.";
  • ERR_REFER_A_FRIEND_SUMMON_COOLDOWN = "You can only summon your friend once per hour.";
  • FACTION_STANDING_INCREASED_BONUS = "Reputation with %s increased by %d. (+%.1f Refer-A-Friend bonus)";
This is just a sampling of the errors, but it raises some highly unexpected possibilities. If whatever functionality this is referring to goes live, it seems like we'd be able to award levels to friends we recruit and summon them to us, in addition to getting a bonus to reputation gains with (specific?) factions. My guess would be that this is to combat the problem of wanting a friend to play with you, but not wanting to wait for him to grind seventy levels so they can get to the "real" game. Obviously it's far too early to analyze this in detail, and again, we may well never see this in game, but it's eyebrow-raising nonetheless.

URL hints at Wrath beta


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?

Enter... Entropius!


[Warning: Possible spoilers ahead! -- sorry, Arturis!] The shaping-up-to-be-über-sweet Patch 2.4 has a few more surprises stored in its files. Some folks were able to dig up the model for a unique-looking demon boss named Entropius. While no more raid bosses have been announced -- it's just M'uru and Kil'jaeden left to kill in Sunwell Plateau on the PTR -- there is much speculation as to the relationship between the formerly chained-up, payback-seeking M'uru and this so-called "Void God". Entered into the wowhead database as early as February 13, it looks like this anorexic voidwalker has more in common with the Dark Naaru than originally thought.

The folks at MMO Champion certainly seem to speculate that M'uru and Entropius are pretty much one and the same, or at least that Entropius is pretty much tied into one of the rumored phases that the M'uru fight will have. You can check out the images above to see them superimposed over each other. See something familiar? It looks like Entropius and M'uru go to the same haberdashers for their shoulder gear. Lore fiends are debating on their relationship now, but in the meantime, it's really nice to see that Patch 2.4 isn't just bringing changes to items and game mechanics, it also seems to promise a lot of developments to World of Warcraft lore.

Alliance to get Seal of Blood in 2.4?


Poster Tamerland from The Scryers posted an interesting nugget to consider over at the Paladin forums today, stating unequivocally that the Alliance will be getting the Blood Elf-only Seal of Blood in Patch 2.4. Conversely, the Horde should be receiving Seal of Vengeance. What's the big deal, you ask? Well, Alliance Retribution Paladins have been crying for Seal of Blood because it has, with numerous calculations, proven to be the superior PvE DPS Seal. In light of the removal of spell damage in Retribution gear and the focus on Strength (and consequently Attack Power), this has become less of a debate and more of a simple fact. Furthermore, Seal of Blood inflicts damage on the Paladin, which is absolutely great as this is incredibly synergistic with Spiritual Attunement, allowing Ret Pallies to regenerate mana as they're healed. While Seal of Vengeance has been argued to be an excellent tanking seal, Horde Paladin tanks have coasted along fine with Seal of Righteousness.

Up until now, Alliance Retribution Paladins have had to balance spell damage along with other stats to optimize Seal of Command while Horde Ret Pallies happily picked up, um... *cough* Warrior gear. If the changes in 2.4 push through, the removal of spell damage severely gimps Seal of Command for PvE and consequently, raiding Alliance Retribution Paladins (yes, such things exist, believe it or not). Tamerland says that the writing is on the wall, and from the lore-shaking changes glimpsed on the PTR, his claims don't seem too far off. The chained up Naaru in the Blood Knights' basement is gone, and the lovely Lady Liadrin (I had to editorialize that. We swore these blood oaths, you know.) comes to Shattrath City to pledge allegiance to A'dal, who welcomes the Light-stealing, Naaru-shackling, demon-blood using Blood Knight matriarch in a totally WWJD moment. The stage really does seem set for such a change, and it wouldn't be the first time that Blizzard has shaken things up in order to balance things out. Paladins were formerly an Alliance-only class once upon a time, after all. Personally, I'm stoked at the possibility. I'm not too thrilled about the Alliance getting Seal of Blood ("my... precious..."), but if it does happen, it means Blizzard is actually listening to its community -- even if they don't say anything most of the time.

Spiritual Guidance: Holyform and lesser Holy talents

There are a few things that have been desired by the players ever since WoW began. Rideable pets for hunters, player housing, guild banks (now in the game! yay!), and additional classes (one coming in Wrath of the Lich King) are a few examples. Here's one more, close to my heart since I have a Holy priest main: Holyform. The dark side of the Priest talent tree has a form; why not the light side? It would supplement our legendarily bad 21/31/41-point talents with something that was truly compelling for the dedicated healer, and of course it would look awesome.

Well, Wowhead and WOWDB now have entries for a spell called, indeed, Holyform, as shown above right. It's hidden in the data files for the 2.4 patch; note that it is not currently trainable by priests on the PTRs. It could be there for any number of reasons: it could be an NPC spell, it could be an ability usable only during the Kil'Jaeden fight, like the Kael'Thas legendaries, or it could just be a cruel joke. The most compelling explanation I've seen is that Blizzard is distributing some of the Wrath patch files early, to lessen the initial download, and this is going to be the new 51-point Holy talent. Please let that be it. Update: comments are reporting that this is an NPC spell in Sunwell. Too bad.

Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Holyform and lesser Holy talents

Blizzard patents "BattleChat," renews Blackthorne patent

Blizzplanet has uncovered that Blizzard has apparently filed a patent for something called "BattleChat," which purports to provide "an interface for the electronic transmission of messages and data including voice, text, and message transmission." Along with the recent news that Blizzard is seeking mobile developers, Blizzplanet supposed that this means Blizz is developing a mobile application for chatting with players either in World of Warcraft or Battle.net (their online network from previous games).

It's all speculation at this point, however-- we did hear back at BlizzCon that Blizzard was planning some really interesting updates for Battle.net, so this just could be a social networking launcher/application for Blizzard's games (chat with, and play with, your friends in multiple Blizzard games at the same time). Either way, odds are Blizzard is working on something big.

And Blizzplanet also discovered that Blizzard also recently updated their Blackthorne patent as well. So if anything is going mobile, that's another good guess (seeing as the game has already been released for a few older consoles and the Game Boy Advance). If these patents are any indication, there's going to be a lot of interesting products on tap at Blizzard Entertainment.

[Thanks, Medievaldragon!]

Rumor: WoW going free-to-play in China


Curse Gaming posted a rumor the other day from a Chinese newspaper named RedlineChina that The9 (the company that runs World of Warcraft in China) is considering switching the game to a "free-to-play" model. As Curse notes, the rumor is just that-- a rumor-- especially considering that The9 is raking in the cash over there. So take this with a nice big cubic block of salt-- odds are that both you and Chinese players will be paying that monthly subscription for years to come.

Still, it's an interesting idea. There are a few free-to-play MMOs here in the US, but there are many, many more over in Asian countries like China and Korea. And there's no question that as popular as World of Warcraft is now, it would be even more popular as a free-to-play model. Odds are that The9 would have to come up with some other form of revenue if they did switch it to free-to-play, although as it is, you can play for free on a demo here in the US-- maybe RedlineChina really meant to report that The9 is going to start releasing free demo copies, up to level 20 with a week of free play, or some plan like that, while still charging for the full game.

At any rate, this is more likely a miscommunication than a rumor with any substance at all. Especially with subscriptions rising and the next expansion on the way, Blizzard is nowhere near even lowering the price on a WoW subscription.

Breakfast Topic: Where the roleplayers at?

After writing last week about getting started with roleplaying, it became clear that a number of people want to try roleplaying, but are having trouble finding the actual roleplayers, even on RP servers. Some players have even said that "RP is dead!" Those who still don't think RP is dead often complain that it's certainly not as alive as it used to be. You might even say that RP is undead in some places, which is a wholly unspeakable extreme.

So today I'd like to ask you, where does the rumor mill tell you to find the best place to roleplay? Does your server rock the house with roleplayers everywhere you look? Have you heard your friend's girlfriend talk about how one time she overheard of her cousin's roommate's elder step-sister's 7-11 store clerk say where the RP really gets immersive? Or do you think it's not a matter of servers at all? Do you have to just team up with the best RP guilds around? If so, how do you find these guilds? Server forums?

I have in mind that I'll go check out some RP servers to research this topic for myself as well. I'm pretty sure my home server (Scarlet Crusade) isn't the best. There, it seems a lot of the old roleplayers went off to do other things, or got involved in other activities and got too busy to roleplay. In any case, with your help and some additional research, perhaps we can come up with practical suggestions for how to track them roleplayers down and actually play the roles!

Wrath of the Lich King Alpha in the wild?

Take this with a gigantic shaker full of salt, but a sketchy guild site host named Ejeet Networks claims to have received screenshots of the downloader for the Wrath of the Lich King alpha (watch out for the automatic music player on their site, too). Again, this means almost nothing-- even if the downloader is really out there in the wild, it hardly means the game is anywhere near done, or that anyone but Blizzard employees are still playing it at this point. But Ejeet says the DNS server for the WotLK beta is online and answering DNS resolution, and they claim that a "Swedish contact" sent them screenshots of the alpha downloader.

Personally, I call shenanigans-- their first screenshot says version .1, and then the Properties screen they have says version 2.0.3.70, so which is it? They also claim that since the Properties screen says "{c} 2004-2008 Blizzard Entertainment," that's proof that we'll see Wrath in 2008, but that's hardly true as well. I have no doubt that we'll see the beta in 2008, but I'd bet money we won't see the expansion itself until January 2009. I'd love to be wrong, but them's the breaks.

But I leave it up to you-- as much as I disagree, these could be proof that Blizzard has an expansion alpha up and running. Anyone else spot any other weirdness that could rule these out as fakes?

Thanks, Dan!

WotLK zone list

Games for Windows magazine has revealed a surprising amount of info on WoW over the past year or so. Now, a subscriber has written in and claims that this month's GFW (not on newsstands yet) contains, among other things, a full zone list for Northrend. Obviously this should be taken as unconfirmed, since we don't have any scans or anything to go on, but I'm inclined to believe it:
  • Howling Fjord (68-72)
  • Borean Tundra (68-72)
  • The Dragonblight (71-75)
  • Zul'Drak (73-76)
  • Grizzly Hills (74-76)
  • Azjol-Nerub (74-78)
  • Sholazar Basin (75-78)
  • The Storm Peaks (77-80)
  • Icecrown Glacier (77-80)
  • Lake Wintergrasp (Outdoor PvP)
Also note that WotLK is still in a fairly early stage of development, and so this is all subject to change. And finally, here's a couple other tidbits, ostensibly from GFW:

The Nexus is the instance hub in the west (Borean Tundra), and "a giant Horde citadel--the largest in Northrend" is also in Borean Tundra, but currently without a name. Also, the final raid wing of The Nexus will likely end with a fight with "half-mad Malygos himself".


Sounds interesting enough, although they seem to be sticking uncomfortably close to the Burning Crusade model. But we'll see. Does anyone else have a copy of this issue of GFW and can confirm this information?

[thanks, Neil]

Next Page >


RESOURCES

Blizzard Events
BlizzCon (190)
Worldwide Invitational (104)
Class Columns
(Druid) Shifting Perspectives (46)
(Hunter) Big Red Kitty (36)
(Hunter) Scattered Shots (21)
(Mage) Arcane Brilliance (43)
(Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It (51)
(Priest) Spiritual Guidance (25)
(Rogue) Encrypted Text (33)
(Shaman) Totem Talk (51)
(Warlock) Blood Pact (31)
(Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors (55)
Gameplay
(Arena PvP) Blood Sport (26)
(BG PvP) The Art of War(craft) (25)
(Casual) WoW, Casually (21)
(Guild Leadership) Officers' Quarters (63)
(Professions) Insider Trader (63)
(Raid Healing) Raid Rx (20)
(Raiding) Raiding 101 (2)
(Raiding) Ready Check (26)
(Roleplaying) All the World's a Stage (44)
Hybrid Theory (20)
New Players' Guide (3)
Tank Talk (6)
AddOns and UI
AddOn Spotlight (89)
Macro Anatomy (14)
Reader UI of the Week (27)
Reader WoWspace of the week (31)
The Creamy GUI Center (14)
Lore and Stories
Around Azeroth (523)
Ask A Lore Nerd (9)
Barrens Chat (9)
Know your Lore (58)
Tales from the Lion's Pride Inn (14)
WoW Moviewatch (515)
Features
15 Minutes of Fame (25)
About the Bloggers (28)
Ask WoW Insider (63)
Azeroth Security Advisor (4)
Breakfast topics (725)
Build Shop (35)
Forum Post of the Day (21)
Gamers on the Street (24)
Guildwatch (81)
He Said She Said (4)
Illusionary Tactics (2)
It came from the Blog (29)
Phat Loot Phriday (92)
The Colosseum (0)
Two Bosses Enter (61)
Well Fed Buff (27)
World of WarCrafts (26)
WoW Insider Show (67)
WoW Rookie (40)
[1.Local] (13)
Classes
Death Knight (97)
Druid (319)
Hunter (288)
Mage (180)
Paladin (305)
Priest (255)
Rogue (181)
Shaman (286)
Warlock (197)
Warrior (219)
News
Account Security (23)
AddOns (256)
Analysis / Opinion (3160)
Blizzard (1662)
Bugs (220)
Burning Crusade (378)
Contests (232)
Economy (198)
Events (465)
Expansions (637)
Fan stuff (919)
Features (674)
Forums (283)
Guilds (504)
Hardware (41)
Humor (805)
Interviews (164)
Lore (315)
Mounts (142)
News items (1602)
NPCs (213)
Odds and ends (1716)
Patches (1153)
Podcasting (78)
Ranking (55)
Realm News (295)
Realm Status (244)
RP (177)
Rumors (68)
Virtual selves (676)
WoW Insider Business (304)
WoW Social Conventions (155)
WoW TCG (57)
Wrath of the Lich King (420)
Strategy
Alts (115)
Arena (257)
Battlegrounds (157)
Bosses (361)
Buffs (129)
Cheats (74)
Classes (325)
Enchants (36)
Factions (166)
Guides (406)
How-tos (413)
Instances (682)
Items (882)
Leveling (302)
Making money (194)
PvP (779)
Quests (381)
Raiding (773)
Talents (153)
Tips (586)
Tricks (232)
Walkthroughs (92)
Media
Comics (80)
Fan art (49)
Galleries (193)
Machinima (601)
Podcasts (52)
Polls (67)
Screenshots (673)
Races
Alliance (118)
Draenei (66)
Dwarves (21)
Gnomes (46)
Human (21)
Night Elves (48)
Horde (119)
Blood Elves (72)
Orcs (29)
Tauren (51)
Trolls (27)
Undead (26)
Professions
Alchemy (80)
Blacksmithing (63)
Cooking (76)
Enchanting (77)
Engineering (112)
First Aid (19)
Fishing (63)
Herbalism (51)
Inscription (14)
Jewelcrafting (87)
Leatherworking (66)
Mining (50)
Skinning (31)
Tailoring (71)
Retired
Pimp My Profile (1)
(Engineering) Hoof and Horn Research and Development (17)
Azeroth Interrupted (24)
Back In The Day (3)
World Wide WoW (8)
/silly (14)

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

    Featured Galleries

    Scarlet Crusade Tabard T-shirt
    Reader UI of the Week 6/29/08
    Worldwide Invitational goodie bag
    WWI08 Costume and Dance Contest
    Worldwide Invitational 2008
    World of WarCrafts: Midsummer magnet
    June 2008 splash screen speculation
    Blizzard splash screen speculation
    Midsummer Fire Festival

     

    Most Commented On (30 days)

    Recent Comments

    Weblogs, Inc. Network

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