Blizzard poster Bashiok has just posted an in-depth explanation of the PvE/PvP currency system changes that are coming in Cataclysm, and it’s an informative read. The lengthy post can be found in its entirety after the jump, but I’ll attempt to summarize the important parts.

The upcoming 4.0 patch will convert Emblems of Triumph and Frost into Justice Points (PvE), and Arena Points, Honor Points, Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper’s Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards into Honor Points (PvP). Simple, right? All PvE badges below Frost and Triumph will be converted into gold.

There will be a limit to the amount of new currencies you can hold, but Blizzard’s providing a grace period in the form of a soft cap. This means your conversion can go over the hard cap, but you can’t earn more until you go below the hard cap. Here’s an example: the conversion gives you 4,200 Justice Points, but the hard cap is 4,000. You’ll have to spend some points to dip under 4,000 before you can earn more. Another patch before Cataclysm will actually enforce the hard cap, and your excess points will be turned into gold.

Keep reading below for more details. Bashiok said that all conversion math should be posted tomorrow afternoon if you’re curious how many Justice and Honor Points you’re going to earn in patch 4.0.

As we discussed in our previous announcement (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24401796793), we’re refining the currency systems used for purchasing PvE and PvP items in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and the transition to this new system will take place in two stages. Today, we’re going into more detail on how these changes will be rolled out, so if you haven’t yet, make sure to check out the prior article to get up to speed on the currency names.
One change of note since that original announcement is that we’ve changed the name of the low-tier PvE currency from Hero Points to Justice Points. The original announcement post has been updated to reflect this.
Out With the Old
In the upcoming 4.0 patch we’ll begin the first stage of the conversion to the new currencies. Emblems of Triumph and Emblems of Frost will be converted into Justice Points. For this initial conversion there will be a soft cap of points you can have, with a hard cap enforced later as detailed below. All PvE emblems and badges below Frost and Triumph will be converted into gold. This even includes legacy badges, like Badges of Justice. If any of these older currencies are converted into gold, the player will receive it through an in-game letter.
At this time any bosses a player defeats that are level-appropriate to them (and previously awarded badges or emblems upon defeat) will award them with the new Justice Points. Similarly, any items that previously cost emblems or badges of any type will now cost Justice Points instead.
On the PvP side, Season 8 will end with the release of patch 4.0, and all Arena Points, Honor Points, any leftover Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper’s Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards will be converted into the new Honor Points. The new Honor Point pool will also have a soft cap for these conversions, but a hard cap will be enforced later. At the time of conversion, items that previously cost Honor or Arena Points will be sold in exchange for the new Honor Points. Rated Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds won’t be available again until Season 9 (shortly after the release of Cataclysm), when they can be entered to win the higher-tier PvP Conquest Points.
In addition, purchasing any item with these secondary currencies (Honor Points and Justice Points) will now require that the purchaser meet the item’s minimum level requirement.
It’s important to note that these conversions are not 1:1, but are indicative of the level and relative worth of each before the conversion to the new point systems. For example, Stone Keeper’s Shards will convert into more Honor Points than Spirit Shards.
Tip of the Cap
While we previously announced that there’s a limit to the amount of these new currencies you can stockpile, we’re providing a grace period in the form of a soft cap. This soft cap will allow the initial conversion to push the amount owned over the cap, but will not allow any further points to be earned (or returned through item refunds) until enough points are spent to put you below the hard cap.
For instance, a player has 3000 Emblems of Triumph, and 1200 Emblems of Frost; at the time of conversion they’ll be given 4200 Justice Points. The hard cap for Justice Points is 4000, so that player won’t be able to earn any more Justice Points until he or she spends enough points to reduce the total to under 4000. This also applies to the new PvP Honor Points, which also have a cap of 4000.
Shortly before Cataclysm is released, another patch will enforce the hard cap, marking the second stage of the currency conversion. Any Justice or Honor Points above the hard cap will be converted to gold, and just like in the first stage of the conversion, the player will receive an in-game letter explaining that some of their currencies were converted into gold as well as delivering the gold itself.

Let us know what you think and if you have any questions. We’re planning to post all of the conversion math tomorrow afternoon for those that want to know how many of each they’ll be getting.

ZAM user CrimsonNeko has pointed us toward a short, but sweet, blue post on the official Cataclysm beta forum: “Tradeskill nodes are intended to give you experience when you loot them.” Pick an herb, earn some exp. Mine a node, earn some exp. Seems like a nice little bonus for characters with these tradeskills.

According to Blizzard poster Daeleht, the exp values that are currently being seen on the PTR may not be final. Regardless, don’t expect to level your character solely through gathering materials (although I’m sure a roleplaying pacifist will give it a shot). Players who skin and collect cloth earn experience for killing enemies, so this will seemingly just give a boost to those who chose mining and herbalism.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming change? Let us know in the comments below or in CrimsonNeko’s thread in our general forum.

When Cataclysm changes the face of Azeroth as we know it, Ashenvale will become a warzone. A volcano will erupt in the center of the map, disrupting the Night Elves and giving the Horde the opportunity to take control of several Alliance strongholds. Intrigued? Then you should definitely check out the Q&A that Blizzard recently posted with quest designers Eric Maloof and Steve Burke that focuses on how the zone will change in the exapansion. We’ve posted the entire interview after the jump for your reading pleasure.

Ashenvale will be a major questing hub for both Horde and Alliance players from levels 20-25. According to the Q&A, “Horde players will have much more to do” in the zone, including a variety of new quests. There are no significant changes planned for Blackfathom Deeps at this time, but the changes to the storyline and terrain should be more than enough to keep players occupied. More details can be found in the Q&A below.

A. The concept for Ashenvale was to show the effects of the Cataclysm while taking the opportunity to streamline the zone’s level design. There were areas of Ashenvale that were pretty unfriendly in terms of accessibility and quest flow. The level designers and quest designers worked together to alleviate the problem areas and highlight the big changes.

Q. Who will be using this zone (what levels/factions)?

A.Both Horde and Alliance players, roughly from levels 20–25. We anticipate that this will be a well-traveled zone in terms of general player flow.

Q. Without giving up any spoilers, what’s the general storyline for this zone? How has it changed from the original design?

A. Among other catastrophes, an enormous volcano has erupted in central Ashenvale. As the night elves struggle to deal with the chaos caused by the Cataclysm, the Horde is seizing what it perceives to be a golden opportunity. Garrosh Hellscream’s forces are now bearing down upon the night elves and have overtaken several key positions that once served as Alliance strongholds. There is a definite feeling that the balance of power in this region now teeters on a goblin tripwire….
These changes also mean that Horde players will have much more to do in Ashenvale.

Q. What do you think is the most exciting new feature of the zone?

A.Visually, it has to be the volcano. It’s stunning, and it provides a great landmark in a place otherwise known for its dense forest. Thematically, the tension present in the zone gives it a whole new feel. The Horde is barricaded inside the walls of Splintertree Post under a massive assault by the night elves and their allies. Meanwhile, Astranaar is desperately fighting off waves of Hellscream’s forces. Practically everywhere you go in Ashenvale, it’s impossible to escape the fact that it has become a warzone.

Q.What goes into redesigning a zone like this?

A.A bit more than meets the eye, we think. Ashenvale is deceptively large, and previously there were many issues in terms of quest flow and Horde/Alliance content balance. Soon after we rolled up our sleeves and broke ground, we realized that our work was cut out for us. There were numerous quests we wanted to keep, but there were also a great many that no longer fit or didn’t play out efficiently. We also needed to create a variety of new quests, especially ones “For the Horde”™.

Q. What was the most challenging aspect about implementing these changes?

A. It can actually be a bit tougher to come in and “do surgery” to an existing zone than it is to completely gut it and start from scratch. Given our ambitious time constraints, trying to determine what stays, what goes, and what other changes to make is certainly a challenge.

Q. What should players do or go see first?

A.Horde players should visit the Mor’shan Rampart first. There’s a new Horde contingent there who is fighting hard to make sure that no night elves escape Hellscream’s onslaught — not that they’d make it far into the Northern Barrens! Alliance players who come down from Darkshore will want to help defend Maestra’s Post and Astranaar as both settlements struggle to keep from falling under Hellscream’s control.

Q. Who seems to have the upper hand in the zone: the Horde, the Alliance, or the elementals?

A.The Horde and the Alliance are throwing themselves at each other on many fronts; neither has a clear upper hand here. The elementals in Ashenvale are a minor nuisance in comparison to the faction struggle.

Q. Should we expect any changes within Blackfathom Deeps?

A.There are no significant changes planned for Blackfathom Deeps at this time.

Q.What has happened to Silverwind Refuge?

A.The Horde has happened!

Q. What has changed the most: the storyline or the terrain?

A.The amount of change has been pretty equal between storyline and terrain. The terrain is much less frustrating than before, and the visual results of the Cataclysm tell the story as much as the quests do. Story-wise, the theme hasn’t changed so much as its intensity has.

Blizzard recently posted a sneak peak of the new cat and bear forms that will be available for troll and worgen Druids in the upcoming Cataclym expansion, and you can check out the screenshots after the jump. The infamous troll tusks and hair play a prominent role in that race’s animal forms, while the worgen forms are distinguished by their teeth and claws.

What do you think of the new designs? Which race are you more likely to pick if you plan on rolling a new druid in the expansion? Let us know in the comments section, or head over to our WoW general forum for more discussion surrounding Cataclysm.

Worgen Cat Form

Worgen Bear Form

Troll Cat Form

Troll Bear Form

Blizzard said:

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.0.1

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

General

• Copied Test Realm characters are not copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

Classes: General

• Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.
• All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.
• Ammo has been removed from the game.
• The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.
• Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.
• Rage has been normalized.
• Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
• Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.
  • Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.
  • Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.
  • Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
  • Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.
  • The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626290449&sid=1

Death Knights

• A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.
• The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.
• The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

• A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.

Hunters

• Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
• Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
• Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
• The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages

• There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins

• Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks

• There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.
• Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items

• Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.
• Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions

• The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

User Interface

• Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.
• The Arena Teams pane has been improved.
• The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.
• The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.
• A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character’s primary and secondary professions.
• Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.
• New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.
• Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.
• New Raid frames are now. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.
• The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.

For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11114&sid=1

For those who may not know Gevlon, creator of the Greedy Goblin blog, has taken on the challenge of trying to clear as much WotLK raid content in possible while only wearing blue (rare) armor, with minor exceptions. His guild “Undergeared” of EU-Arathor spent much of the spring and summer clearing content despite the self-imposed handicap.

However as the summer has dragged on the group has fizzled somewhat, as many guilds do. They are planning one last attempt to clear some additional content this coming week, but other than that it appears this great experiment is coming to a close.

So what is the end result? The guild ended up clearing a large portion of the game’s 10-man content. Barring some additional success in the coming week; the group ended up clearing 8 out of the 12 bosses in Icecrown Citadel, including the first wing, plus Rotface, Festergut, Valithria Dreamwalker and Blood Princes. All of Trial of the Crusader and Naxxramas encounters were cleared, and all but two bosses in Ulduar (Yogg-Saron and Assembly of Iron). In addition they also cleared all of the 5-man heroic content.

Interestingly enough the group found the Trial of the Crusader (ToC) raid to be easier than Ulduar wearing the same gear, despite the fact that ToC was released later in the expansion. Whether or not they clear any additional content, the guild went a long way toward showing what a sufficiently skilled group can accomplish; kudos to them.

Ok, Blizzard fans, now we’re getting somewhere. If you attend BlizzCon or buy a BlizzCon virtual ticket you will unlock a couple murloc themed prizes to use in World of Warcraft and StarCraft II. World of Warcraft players will unlock Deathy, a debatably cute murloc companion dressed up like the dragon Deathwing.

StarCraft II players will unlock a Murloc marine portrait as well as a pair of “deep sea decals” to put on your units, each with a different design from the 3 playable races: terran, protoss and zerg.

So what do you think about all this Murloc madness? Go here to see a picture of Deathy.

Recently Blizzard gave us more information on changes in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion; Game designers Craig Amai and Dave Kosak give us some inside views on the overall design and  revamping  of Azshara.
It’s great to see that no zone is safe. In other interviews we saw that quests and pieces of a zone change, a typhoon or vortex here, new quests sprinkled about, or new story lines.  But here, we see Blizzard isn’t afraid to completely wipe the zone and start fresh. They’ve choosen to keep a few things familiar so it still feels like the old zone, using the same color palette and a few choice landmarks. The familiarity is comforting amidst the massive amount of new content.

Changing the zone’s level is a huge difference, both for the zone, and the continent. It gives us, the players,  many more options with our leveling experience. Azshara is now 10-20, and being connected to Orgrimmar, competes with Northern Barrens. After Cataclysm launches, everyone that creates a new character, young or veteran players players alike, will have many more choices to make their play experience much more enjoyable. This was fantastic for leveling in Northrend and I’m  realy happy they carried it over.
The inclusion of instanced parts of the zone, where we get to feel that each one of us makes a difference. The fact that a goal can be visibly and permanently achieved through our trials and tribulations in questing is very exciting. I foresee many new players, and  80s, coming here to check out the new quests, story line, and the freshly reimagined zone.

Also stop in and drop by our forums, to discuss, or read about, any of the great upcoming changes in the World of Warcraft, or see if any of our great posters, that are in the Beta, could shed a few more snippets of info on the zone.

During the latest maintenance blizzard has introduced the beginning of the pre-Cataclysm events with Operation Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall for the alliance and the horde respectively.
Rather then try to explain the events to you I will simply let you experience them yourself.  The first part of the quest is available to low level characters, but to finish the quest series you need to be level 75 or above.  These adventures give us an opportunity to finally take the fight to the enemy, and crush them.  So go, brave adventurers and take part in this epic quest.
User Criminy has made a thread about the event on the forums so after you lay down the hurt, drop by and share your experiences.  Feel free to share screenshots as well.
Blizzard links and user screenshots after the jump

Blizzard links

Zalazane’s Fall
Operation Gnomeregan

Shapes and shadows dance around me, spirits of the dead taunting me, mocking my own clumsy movements. Behind them, the sea crashes and foams, dark against a pale sky, and smoke rises as bat riders circle. I smell blood on the wind that lashes at my face, tangling coarse hair about my tusks. He’s out there.

“ZALAZANE!”

I bellow like a raging elekk, tossing my head to clear my eyes. I draw my sword, grip firm and familiar in my hand after so many years of use. I’m ready, I’m coming for him, I–

The spirits swarm around me, grabbing me, snatching at my hands, tugging at my armor. Eyeless sockets leer at me, whispers fill my ears, voices too low for me to make them out. Just one makes it through, and at that one I grip my sword tighter, swinging down to cut at the ghost in front of me. It laughs and darts away, replaced by another as I shout my denial. I’m no weak woman to sit by the fire and wait for a mate that never returns, not anymore. I’m a fighter! A troll! But the spirits don’t seem to care. They close in, pulling at my arms, wrapping bony fingers around my legs. I have to get away, have to pull free. There’s a battle coming, and I have to be there.

The more I struggle, though, the stronger they become. A pit opens under me and they drag me down, deep under the ground. My mouth and nose fill with earth, and I look around desperately as my lungs cry out under the crushing weight. I can somehow see, as if the dirt pressing down around me was murky water, and I wish I couldn’t. I’m drowning in a mass grave, surrounded by the bodies of hundreds, maybe a thousand other trolls. Broken tusks, exposed bone, and ravaged, eyeless faces, tongueless mouths open in silent shrieks of terror. Most look familiar, though I can’t quite place them, and some of them are still fighting. There’s a young warrior next to me, bony fingers clawing at the shadows wrapped around his throat, and another further below tangled in combat with yet another ghoulish figure.

I can feel something prying my jaws open further, slithering inside. I can’t breathe, and it’s got me by the tongue, pulling at it, ripping it loose. I only realize I’ve been screaming when I’m no longer able to. My vision darkens, and my ears are filled with a warbling hum that trickles through the earth, becoming louder and louder as I sink further into my grave.

. . . . .

I open my eyes, blinking at the face in front of me. Jagged teeth, bulging eyes, a ragged green crest of hair… The rest of my armor lies behind it, propped up against a pile of the ethereals’ storage devices. The buzzing in my head wavers, settling into the steady hisses and pops from a gate behind me, and I look down at my hands. No muddied earth, no sign of the nightmare there. Just strips of bloodied bandage wrapped around where my gauntlets ought to be. I remember now. I must have pounded at the earth for hours, ripping at the blood-soaked grass with my bare hands as the hexer, the traitor, sank beneath it. No body for me to burn, to spit on. The loa took it as an offering. I should be glad, even not knowing myself what sort of tortures wait for him on the other side of things. I’m not.

That one’s gone now, but it still won’t bring him back. The face I saw inside the circle of dancers is gone now, too, as is the half-glimpsed child beside him. My family, my enemy… and here I am, alone. I ran out of things to live for a while ago, but I never expected to run out of things to die for, too.

I stare at the helmet a moment more, vaguely aware of wispy shapes moving behind it, fuzzy and indistinct. The bandage ghosts can’t have helped my dreams any. Some idea, a new goal, tickles at the back of my mind, but I push it away as I shove my hands against the ground and rise to my feet. Less thinking, Zaa. The kid has a stash of drink somewhere around here, and I’m sure he won’t mind if I track it down. It’s an easy solution to the problem of what the hell to do next.

After that, well, there are always ogres to kill.

———————–
This was Isyris’s character’s response to the latest horde quest to take out Zalazane.  How did your characters deal with the aftermath of these events?  Does it haunt their dreams?  Let us know!  If you’re interested in writing RP style stories, drop by the story thread in the WoW General Forum.  Also feel free to send me a PM (Xsarus) if you’d like a story of yours put on the front page.

Have you always wanted to go to BlizzCon, but never managed to snag your tickets in time? Or perhaps you’ve got some kind of crazy story to tell as to why you desperately want to go to BlizzCon, but have been thwarted, year after year? If so, then this is the contest for you! From now until September 30th, 2010, the World of Warcraft Official Magazine will be running a contest, open to the public, for your chance to win a trip for two (that’s roundtrip airfare, two nights at a hotel, and passes to the event!) to this year’s BlizzCon. All you need to do is submit an essay of one hundred (100) or fewer (no books here, people) words describing why you would like to attend BlizzCon 2010. You can enter at the official World of Warcraft Magazine website here, and if you want to enter without subscribing to the magazine (it won’t help your chances!), then just fill out the entry form here.

Entries will be judged by the editorial staff at the World of Warcraft Official Magazine, and the criteria used to judge the entries will be based on equal parts originality, creativity and consistency with theme. The judging will be completed by October 4th, 2010, and there is a limit of one entry per household. Good luck, everyone!

But I do tend to ramble – let me show you a few things about it!

First, let’s start with a blue post from He-Who-Crawls-with-the-Ghosts
Ghostcrawler said:
Archaeology just went in this build for the first time and we don’t yet have any of the support around it to teach players what to do. It has been informative to watch players learn to swim by drowning, but we thought it was time to offer a little more direction.

Digsites

Once you train archaeology, you can see digsites on your map (not your minimap – your map). There are always 4 digsites per continent. These will not change until you dig one out. Most of the time, you’re probably only going to be concerned with the 4 sites on your current continent, but at higher character and archaeology skill levels, there will be 16 sites active at one time (4 each in Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Outland and Northrend.)

You will only find sites in zones of your level or lower. A level 25 player will have all 4 sites per continent in level 25 zones. (This means Outland and Northrend will have no sites at this time.) A level 80 player will have all 4 sites in any zone. A low level Kalimdor player might have sites in Ashenvale and Stonetalon, while a level 82 might have Uldum, Ashenvale, Stonetalon and Silithus.

Sites are race specific. You can usually guess the race by the location. Kalimdor tends to have a lot of night elf ruins. Eastern Kingdoms tends to have a lot of dwarf ruins.

Some races are only available on some continents (such as orc and draenei on Outland). You need to have a minimum character level and a minimum archaeology level to use these. Currently you can see them if you are a certain character level but can’t gather from them until your archaeology skill is higher. For Outland, the skill is 300. While somewhat consistent with other gathering skills, we think this is confusing and we will change it so that you don’t even see the digsites until your archaeology skill is sufficiently high. Tol’vir artifacts are the most rewarding, but also require near max archaeology skill to recover.

Some players are reporting some issues with digsites not showing up correctly. We’ll look into these bugs.

Unlike other gathering skills, digsites are player-specific. Other players will be searching in different locations. There is no competition for digsites.

Fragments

Each digsite can be searched 3 times before it despawns and a new site spawns. If there is a digsite somewhere too far away from you or otherwise inconvenient, just ignore it and hit the closer ones. You won’t run out.

To search a digsite, use the Survey ability. The survey tool will spawn and point in the approximate direction of the artifact. Red means you’re far away. Yellow means you’re close. Green means you may be within 40 yards or so. When you discover your find, you’ll get fragments specific to a particular race.

There are two main strategies to surveying. You can attempt to triangulate by moving around the outer edge of a digsite. (Like quest blobs, the digsites are not necessarily circular.) Other players just keep surveying, heading in the direction the tool points until they strike paydirt.

Remember, the thing you uncover is yours. There is no competition with other players and nobody can gank your node.

Artifacts

Whenever you get a new fragment for a race, you’ll start a research project. You can only work on one artifact per race at a time. When you have enough fragments, click Solve to complete that artifact. You won’t waste excess fragments — they will just start the next project. You can be working on one project for each race at a time.

Most artifacts are common. These give you a little bit of lore or flavor text and an item you can sell for a small profit (presumably to a museum!) The profit increases as the value of the artifact increases. You can estimate this by the number of fragments needed to finish the artifact. You will only find cheaper artifacts at low level, but you can find cheap and valuable artifacts at higher level (the reason for this is we want players to be able to find all the artifacts if they want to). You won’t find a second copy of a common object until you have found all the artifacts of that race. If you get stuck at a certain skill level of archaeology or character level, you may find an artifact more than once until you reach the next tier.

Some artifacts are rare. These always make a blue or purple item. Many of these have no in-game power and are toys or for flavor. Some of them are actual weapons and armor. The latter items are all bound to account. They aren’t heirlooms in that they don’t scale, but you can pass them around. So if you are level 80 and you find a level 60 axe, you can always have another character use it when they are level 60. You will never get a rare artifact more than once.

The future

We designed archaeology to be easily expandable, so we plan to add much more content in future patches, including new races to research (though to be fair, there’s a sizable amount of content already). We also have a feature that is not available on beta yet, that allows you to use your archaeology skill for a slight (think Fish Feast-level) bonus in the Cataclysm dungeons.
And now my own words on all this, accompanied by screenshots.

When you first train Archaeology, you may be a little lost about what to do. I sure was. The trainer doesn’t brief you, and there is nowhere in the UI that you can find guidelines. I suspect this will be changed later on, but as of today, it took me quite some time to figure the stuff out. And here is what the stuff is all about.

You are given a spell you are going to be using a lot – Survey. You will need to look at your world map and search for the archaeology-specific digging shovel icon. Those indicate digging sites. Once you get to the digging site, you will want to start using that Survey spell you just got. Every time you cast it, you will place a surveying equipment on the ground. It consists of a telescope-like looking part, that indicates the direction of the closest set of fragments; and a light that is either red, yellow, or green – this indicates how close you are to the fragments, green being very close. You keep using those Surveys, and eventually you will be able to pinpoint the location of the fragments set. When you perform the final Survey, the one that is within only a few yards of the fragments, an object will spawn (different for each one of the races), and you will be able to loot 2-4 Fragments of that specific race. The first fragments you loot will determine which artifact you will be searching for. Once you’ve collected enough fragments to assemble an artifact, you can click the “Solve” button in your archaeology window and get your reward. “Solving” a common artifact awards the artifact itself as a gray item in your bags, that you can vendor – but it will also give you quite a few skillpoints towards your profession. You can find all of the artifacts we know of presently here

Different digsites award different fragments. Surveying around ancient bones usually gives Fossil Archaeology Fragments, night elven ruins yield Night Elven Archaeology Fragments, and so on. There are total of 10 “races” – I put that in quotation marks, because Fossils are not exactly a race. I am still discovering all this, but I suspect the Forsaken and maybe the Worgen won’t have their own fragments. Possibly neither will the gnomes and the goblins, but I am only speculating here.

Zarhym said: We’ve added a new flying skill called Flight Master’s License. When World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is released, players who purchase the expansion will see this skill available from flight trainers for 250 gold once they reach level 60. This new skill is required for flying around all Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms zones, including the new level 80-85 zones.

Blizzard is apparently dropping support for older Macs stating that Apple itself has been focusing on Intel Macs since 2005. As per Blizzard Forum Staff S4d1k, “So since 5 years, PPC systems has received very few bug fixes. It is now too hard to deal with all the bugs and the lack of features to support the few PPC users that we have left.”

Of course here, the staff is pointing out important updates related to graphics, key system extensions and framework of the PowerPC Mac systems. At this moment, Apple releases only security updates for old PowerPC based Mac Systems and even the new Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard won’t run on PowerPC based Macs.

World of Warcraft is one of the heavily played MMORPG games that gets a major expansion packs every year. To cope with new technologies, game developers have to drop support for old and extinct hardware. We’re sure that number of users who’re addicted and true followers of the game would upgrade their machines. The patch, in the near future would be automatically applied for any user on PowerPC Mac running Burning Crusade or Wrath or Lich King.

Blizzard stated that they have been progressively downgrading the game’s hardware compatibility in relation to Macs ever since “the death of Leopard a year ago”, and this is just another move in this regard. The game started off as a pretty flexible and portable title, but ended up more and more demanding with each expansion pack which added new content to the game.

And in case you’re wondering – yes, the same goes for StarCraft 2 and the upcoming Diablo 3 – PowerPCs are a no-go for those titles as well. Oh well, we guess if it helps improve the game for the majority of players, we can’t really blame them.

He did acknowledge that a MMO on a console will be widely successful but its very very difficult to achieve the task. One of the major problems with reference to the WOW is its keyboard-centric nature and the whole notion of transferring all related keyboard controls onto a gamepad is a challenging ask.

Even if Blizzard thinks about particular consoles, there are related technical issues where the PS3 does have an integrated hard drive but then, the Xbox 360 lacks the same which makes it all the more complicated.

If Blizzard is somehow convinced to develop the game for consoles, the time consumed for developing such a vast MMO will be a problem and the involved risk is the life-cycle of the consoles itself.

Shortly before the release of Cataclysm a patch will be released in which PowerPC processor based Macs will no longer be supported. This update indicates the removal of PowerPC support from World of Warcraft. Attempting to run the game after the update will bring up a message stating the hardware is no longer supported, and the game will not run.

Players in World of Warcraft control a character, also known as an “avatar,” who is one of many entities in the fantasy world called Azeroth.  This character can talk, trade, or fight with any of the computer controlled characters (NPC’s) or other player controlled characters (PC’s). The player is given quests from NPC’s, designated by an exclamation point over their head. The completion of these tasks yields rewards like in game money or items like armor and other useful consumable items (loot) or experience points (XP). Experience points are key to the game, once enough have been collected, the player’s character advances a level. Increasing one’s level increases statistics governing how well one completes quests and unlocks new abilities, such as being able to sneak around unseen.

Each level is progressively more difficult to achieve, but the player is more capable of achieving it. This process of completing quests, gaining XP, and leveling up is the fundamental gameplay of WoW.

Many games beyond MMORPGs use this basic gameplay structure, but the key to WoW’s popularity is the “Massively Multiplayer” element. The world that players inhabit can hold thousands players simultaneously. Even when any one individual player is not in game, the world persists without him. The sun rises and sets every day and the year even has a holiday calendar. “Noblegarden” falls around Easter, “Hallow’s End” around Halloween, and “Feast of Winter’s Vale” around Christmas.

The world changes as new content is added and events mark the advancement of the history of the world. Any one player has a friend’s list where they can chat and trade with people they meet in either the real world or in the game world. The most interesting quests and the best rewards come from group quests that everyone performs together. Each individual character has a “class” that determines what they will specialize in while in group situations. Players can take hits from enemies (tanks), hit enemies back (DPS), or even heal (healers) making coordination and strategy key to completing the most difficult quests.

Group quests can take as few as five people or as many as 40. In-game organizations founded and managed by guilds are used to organize people and provide a support network of resources and knowledge. It is this social, collaborative nature of World of Warcraft that people find so appealing. The same thing that makes Facebook so appealing. It is providing of a social space for people to fill themselves that makes WoW so successful, keeping people in things to do together while attracting those who want to participate in a new and different way with friends.

After its release date in 2004, WoW has constantly added content and refined what already existed. Six years of doing so has built a large amount of complexity into the game. This depth is daunting to the newcomer, and the difference in quality between earlier and later content is profound. However, in late 2010 or early 2011, Blizzard plans to release its third major expansion, Cataclysm. Cataclysm will be a remake of the original content of the game, making it much more friendly to newcomers and enjoyable for veterans. If you have wanted to pick the game up, or were discouraged by older versions of the game, Cataclysm will be an opportunity for new and old alike to experience WoW again.

Firefall is a team based massive-multiplayer shooter game, that seemingly combines all the best features of all the best recent games into one. What is more impressive, is that the game will be free. No monthly subscriptions or software purchases required by gamers. The game will not be released until the end of 2011, so we have quite a bit of anticipation to do, however, gamers who would like to test Firefall out are able to do so by registering at their website for the beta testing.

As someone who plays both Horde and Alliance characters, I actually logged into my extremely neglected World of Warcraft account to experience the events.  Zalazane’s Fall ran smoothly when I experienced it on Wednesday evening, but many players on various servers have been reporting that Jun’do the traitor stays immune to all attacks, causing the event to glitch.  Every now and then the timer for the event stays at zero, which also glitches the event.

Alliance players are also seeing some difficulty with their respective event.  High Tinker Mekkatorque often times will freeze in place, preventing the event from continuing.  As of Wednesday the 8th at 5:20 PDT, Blizzard announced in a thread on the official forums that High Tinker Mekkatorque should no longer freeze in place, though some players may still be having some difficulty with him and are encouraged to submit an in-game ticket.  There is a possible “work-around” for the event until they have a permanent fix in place, but Blizzard is unsure of when such a fix will be available.

I tried completing Operation: Gnomeregan last night, and High Tinker Mekkatorque is still freezing before entering the city.  There are apparently a few tricks you can use on your server if he is still freezing.  Some players are stating that if you don’t travel down into the tunnel before High Tinker Mekkatorque, this can prevent him from freezing.  Hopefully Blizzard rolls out a fix to the events soon so everyone can experience  them way they were meant to be.

Keep your eyes peeled to that thread for future updates!

The core of Firefall seems to be around Battleframes.  These suits allow players to customize their powers and unlock unique abilities for the class based combat of the game.  What stands out for me is the look of the game – which reminds me a bit of Borderlands in terms of style, though there’s still a realistic edge to the terrain.  There’s a 10 minute gameplay trailer on the official site (and posted below) which I recommend watching, and if you head over to the site you can sign up for the beta too.

According to the press release all updates and content for the game will be free as well, instead battleframe enhancements and other customizations will cost players money. 

Here’s a bit of the back story:
“Firefall paints a beautifully devastating vision of Earth, 200 years in the future. The promise of a new clean energy source, Crystite, leads to the disastrous arrival of the Melding, a hostile energy storm that engulfs most of our home planet. Earth’s surviving humans must band together in the eye of the Melding storm to save our species. Unfortunately, a new danger emerges as a bloodthirsty race known as The Chosen threatens humanity’s survival. ”

There’s no word on when the beta will begin, but it looks like the game is well on its way into development.

I recieved a note from a troll yesterday, signalling the start of a series of events that’ll bring about a Cataclysm in the world’s biggest MMO, World of Warcraft.

The note invited me over to the Echo Isles off the coast of Durotar in Azeroth. It’s one of the ancestral homes of the Darkspear tribe of trolls, but the tribe was ousted from the islands by a traitorous witch doctor named Zalazane, who began enslaving the population. However, the Darkspears, led by their leader Vol’jin, are fighting back, and preparing to take back control of their land.

Over the other side of the world, the gnomes of the Alliance are preparing a similar push back into their irradiated hometown, Gnomeregan. High Tinker Mekkatorque is pushing back into the city, with the aim of recapturing the surface to provide a home for the gnomes exiled by the treachery of Mekkatorque’s chief advisor, Thermaplugg.

Both in-game events involve players of all levels, but only those between 75 and 80 will be able to take part in the final push to reclaim territory before World of Warcraft’s next expansion pack, Cataclysm, is released before the end of the year.

Cataclysm will tell the story of the return of Deathwing the Destroyer, a massive evil dragon who’s been hiding in a cave under the world since the events of Warcraft II. His return tears through dimensional barriers, ripping apart areas that have remained static since the game’s original release, releasing rivers of magma through some zones, and unleashing floods in others.

The expansion will also make significant changes to the game’s mechanics, introducing two new playable races — the Worgen (who are essentially werewolves) and Goblins. It’ll also simplify many aspects of the game’s mechanics, removing little-understood statistics like attack value, armour penetration and block value, raise the level cap to 85 and introduce around 3000 new quests.

While there’s no set release date for Cataclysm yet, it’s expected to arrive just before the Christmas holidays. World of Warcraft’s last expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, remains the the fastest selling videogame of all time, shifting 2.8 million copies in 24 hours. With 11.5 million players of the game across the world (more than the population of Greece), there’s no reason to believe that Cataclysm won’t perform similarly.

Q. What was the original concept for the zone?

A. The concept for Ashenvale was to show the effects of the Cataclysm while taking the opportunity to streamline the zone’s level design. There were areas of Ashenvale that were pretty unfriendly in terms of accessibility and quest flow. The level designers and quest designers worked together to alleviate the problem areas and highlight the big changes.

Q. Who will be using this zone (what levels/factions)?

A.Both Horde and Alliance players, roughly from levels 20–25. We anticipate that this will be a well-traveled zone in terms of general player flow.

Q. Without giving up any spoilers, what’s the general storyline for this zone? How has it changed from the original design?

A. Among other catastrophes, an enormous volcano has erupted in central Ashenvale. As the night elves struggle to deal with the chaos caused by the Cataclysm, the Horde is seizing what it perceives to be a golden opportunity. Garrosh Hellscream’s forces are now bearing down upon the night elves and have overtaken several key positions that once served as Alliance strongholds. There is a definite feeling that the balance of power in this region now teeters on a goblin tripwire….
These changes also mean that Horde players will have much more to do in Ashenvale.

Q. What do you think is the most exciting new feature of the zone?

A.Visually, it has to be the volcano. It’s stunning, and it provides a great landmark in a place otherwise known for its dense forest. Thematically, the tension present in the zone gives it a whole new feel. The Horde is barricaded inside the walls of Splintertree Post under a massive assault by the night elves and their allies. Meanwhile, Astranaar is desperately fighting off waves of Hellscream’s forces. Practically everywhere you go in Ashenvale, it’s impossible to escape the fact that it has become a warzone.

Q.What goes into redesigning a zone like this?

A.A bit more than meets the eye, we think. Ashenvale is deceptively large, and previously there were many issues in terms of quest flow and Horde/Alliance content balance. Soon after we rolled up our sleeves and broke ground, we realized that our work was cut out for us. There were numerous quests we wanted to keep, but there were also a great many that no longer fit or didn’t play out efficiently. We also needed to create a variety of new quests, especially ones “For the Horde”™.

Q. What was the most challenging aspect about implementing these changes?

A. It can actually be a bit tougher to come in and “do surgery” to an existing zone than it is to completely gut it and start from scratch. Given our ambitious time constraints, trying to determine what stays, what goes, and what other changes to make is certainly a challenge.

Q. What should players do or go see first?

A.Horde players should visit the Mor’shan Rampart first. There’s a new Horde contingent there who is fighting hard to make sure that no night elves escape Hellscream’s onslaught — not that they’d make it far into the Northern Barrens! Alliance players who come down from Darkshore will want to help defend Maestra’s Post and Astranaar as both settlements struggle to keep from falling under Hellscream’s control.

Q. Who seems to have the upper hand in the zone: the Horde, the Alliance, or the elementals?

A.The Horde and the Alliance are throwing themselves at each other on many fronts; neither has a clear upper hand here. The elementals in Ashenvale are a minor nuisance in comparison to the faction struggle.

Q. Should we expect any changes within Blackfathom Deeps?

A.There are no significant changes planned for Blackfathom Deeps at this time.

Q.What has happened to Silverwind Refuge?

A.The Horde has happened!

Q. What has changed the most: the storyline or the terrain?

A.The amount of change has been pretty equal between storyline and terrain. The terrain is much less frustrating than before, and the visual results of the Cataclysm tell the story as much as the quests do. Story-wise, the theme hasn’t changed so much as its intensity has.

Troll Bear

Troll Cat

Worgen Bear

Worgen Cat

Check out all the cartographical coolness after the break!

Table of Contents

• New Classic Zone Map
  • Hillsbrad Foothills
• New Classic Dungeon & Raid Maps
  • Gnomeregan
  • Scarlet Monastery
  • Sunken Temple
  • The Deadmines
  • Maraudon
  • Ragefire Chasm
  • Dire Maul
  • Temple of Ahn’Qiraj
• New Cataclysm Zone Maps
  • Twilight Highlands
  • Stranglethorn Vale
• New Cataclysm Dungeons & Raids Maps
  • Throne of the Tides
  • The Vortex Pinnacle
  • The Stonecore
  • The Bastion of Twilight
  • Lost City of the Tol’vir

New Classic Zone Map                                                                                                                                               

Hillsbrad Foothills

New Classic Dungeon & Raid Maps                                                                                                                             

Gnomeregan

Scarlet Monastery

Sunken Temple

The Deadmines

Maraudon

Ragefire Chasm

Dire Maul

Temple of Ahn’Qiraj

New Cataclysm Zone Maps                                                                                                                                         

Twilight Highlands

Stranglethorn Vale

New Cataclysm Dungeons & Raids Maps                                                                                                                       

Throne of the Tide

The Vortex Pinnacle

The Stonecore

The Bastion of Twilight

Lost City of the Tol’vir

Starting Tuesday, August 31, we’ll be posting two questions per day on our Warcraft Twitter page that will focus on key aspects of each World of Warcraft character class. For each of the ten class questions, we’ll be selecting five winners at random from those who answer correctly to receive their very own SwagDog Class Icon custom t-shirt!

Read more here and/or check out the full set of rules.

There’s also two noteworthy hotfixes that were discussed in detail in other threads. Heal over time spells now trigger HoT-related effects, even when the target has full health. Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street talked about this change in a thread about Val’anyr: “This means that effects that were able to proc from HoT ticks that did some healing can now also proc from HoT ticks that overheal completely. The most notable such effect is that Val’anyr’s absorb shield should now work as advertised.”

Also, Crygil made a long post about changes to Hot Streak for mages. Here’s the final result: “Hot Streak triggers exactly as stated in its tooltip: ’2 non-periodic spell criticals in a row using Fireball, Fire Blast, Scorch, Living Bomb, or Frostfire Bolt.’ Only non-periodic damage interacts with it, and only those spells listed. Periodics do not affect the streak in any way. Direct damage from the listed spells always count, for or against the streak.”

8/8/2009

• Prayer of Mending will now trigger Divine Aegis on the healed target and not the priest who cast Prayer of Mending.
• Players on vehicles, when the Isle of Conquest battleground ends, will now properly receive the appropriate number of Isle of Conquest Marks of Honor.
• General Vezax will now cast Shadow Crash slightly less frequently. He will also refrain from casting Searing Flames multiple times in succession.
• Hand of Reckoning is no longer able to be used on targets that are immune to taunt, including players.

8/6/2009

• Alchemist transmutes, while in raids, will now count towards quest completion.
• Steam-Powered Auctioneers are no longer attackable.
• The Generals in Isle of Conquest now do less damage.
• Druid, Priest and Shaman heal over time spells now appropriately trigger heal over time related effects, even when the target has full health.
• Mage Hot Streak Update:
  http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110153306&sid=1

In addition, Blizzard is celebrating the release of episode 10 with a contest. All you need to do is answer five questions pertaining to the interview and you could win a “Blood Elf Rogue vs. Draeni Paladin” diorama from Sideshow Collectibles, which is worth $299. Check out the rules and submit your answers here. You can find the questions after the jump.

It’s been a little while since our last BlizzCast, and we’re celebrating its return with a brand-new contest.

Are you a BlizzCast enthusiast? Have you downloaded every episode within minutes of its release? Do you take notes to distribute amongst your guild? Well then, this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. Listen carefully to BlizzCast 10, answer the questions below, and you may just win yourself a fantastic prize.

1) Who was the interviewer in this BlizzCast?

2) For what purpose or purposes is Tirion Fordring running the Argent Tournament?

3) How did the Tribute system come into being?

4) What was Senior Game Designer Dave Maldonado looking forward to in patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade?

5) Why is Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer so excited to go to BlizzCon?

Check out the Contest Rules and submit your answers here: http://www.blizzard.com/submission/contest-form.html?contestId=7

Contest Rules: http://www.blizzard.com/us/misc/contests/blizzcast/index.html

When it comes to “leaked” information, WoW.com has hit just about as many as it’s missed. That’s why we’re reporting that they’ve reported inside sources have leaked the big one, and “confirmed” to the website what the next playable races in WoW will be (and for which faction). You can check out the site’s post here, or click through to the jump if you’d like to know what WoW.com claims the next playable races will be.

Quoted directly from WoW.com:

Our sources have told us that the new races of Cataclysm will be:

Worgen – Alliance

Goblin – Horde

“[...] once we say ‘tanking niches’ players have visions of the DK who parks outside of Icecrown until boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is that big),” he wrote. When you consider that dungeons the size of Karazhan only featured half as many bosses, it leads you to believe that Icecrown Citadel could be the largest instanced structure we’ve ever seen.

Because of a recent remark made by Activision-Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick about raising the price of video games (and, perhaps, the recent news that StarCraft II’s release is being pushed back until 2010), some gamers and MMO fans are on the verge of an all-out, nerd-rage meltdown.

But is the anger really justified? Or is this just another example of the anonymous online collective banding together for a quick “screw the Man” tirade, only to dissipate and retreat to its usual consumer habits a few weeks later?

In a conference call between research analysts and Activision-Blizzard last week, one of the analysts—Tony Gikas—asked about the company’s “comfort level” regarding its new, higher-priced games. (He was referring to games like Guitar Hero, which are bundled with special controllers or peripherals.)

Activision CEO Kotick replied, “You know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further,” according to the transcription from the conference call (via vg247.com). As you can imagine, if you haven’t already seen the resulting blowback from the community, a whirlwind of accusations and speculation ensued.

Some websites and blogs reported the story with a level-headed approach, while others pretty much demonized the CEO, accusing him of devaluing customer loyalty for the sake of pure greed. One guy,(“James” of WeDoTech.net, even called for a boycott of all Activision properties in a video that’s been making its way through the blog circuit. He claims Kotick and Activision-Blizzard are setting a harmful example within the industry, and placing us in danger of a gaming price-fixing fiasco reminiscent of the late 80s.

This isn’t the first time Kotick has met opposition from the media and gaming communities; he’s been quoted as saying that Activision-Blizzard doesn’t consider a game worth publishing unless it has “the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises,” according to MTV Multiplayer.

Another scathing—yet truthful?—commentary comes from a classic ArsTechnica editorial, written by Ben Kuchera back in January:

With Kotick, he’s very brazen about his need to squeeze every last dollar he can out of every franchise under the Activision Blizzard label. He wants to exploit his games. He wants to make sure he has a sequel every year, and don’t forget the Wii and DS ports. Why have one StarCraft game if you can have three? Just because people are used to Battle.net being free doesn’t mean you can’t find some way to make more money from the service.

World of Warcraft may look like it will go on forever, but the only thing greater than the loyalty of those players is Kotick’s cash-lust. The only question is if the two will ever collide.

As an MMO fan, it’s a bit easier to turn a blind eye when you’re confronted with news and commentary like these, especially if you only play PC games and don’t dabble in the console market. But don’t mistake MMO or PC properties as inherently immune to the same issues and concerns that the console gaming community faces.

It used to be that the traditional, “living room gaming” market; i.e., console games, utterly decimated PC games, in terms of sales. In recent years, the gap between the two has significantly started to narrow. The whole Activision-Blizzard entity is, itself, a testament to that fact. Admittedly, Activision-Blizzard makes for an easier target to exemplify this concept, but the same is true with companies such as Electronic Arts, Atari and Sony; console and PC gaming have become bedfellows, both sharing a single publisher or developer.

That also means the successes or failures of each industry within a company like Activision-Blizzard aren’t as insulated from each other as they were in the past. To illustrate that dynamic, consider the pushback of StarCraft II’s release date. Activision-Blizzard explained the reason for the delay, claiming it needed to work on the Battle.net service before it launches the game. A portion of the official release:

Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.

According to Kotaku’s coverage of the story, Activision-Blizzard is forecasting its global revenue in 2009 lower than it originally predicted—and partly due to StarCraft II’s new release date. The upcoming StarCraft II trilogy will no doubt be a money-making cash cow, and it’s no surprise that Activision-Blizzard wants to make sure Battle.net is working optimally by the time the game launches. You have to wonder, though—would things be different if the two industries weren’t so intertwined as they now are, relying on each other’s success and affected by each other’s failure?

Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that a video game publisher’s sole reason for existence in this world is to make money, especially with the kind of media coverage we’re privy to online. It can be tough for many gamers to see anything but the color red when they have honest issues and concerns as consumers, yet stumble upon an itemized report of Kotick’s $15 million salary for 2008.

Check out now!

It’s been a little while since our last BlizzCast, and we’re celebrating its return with a brand-new
contest. Are you a BlizzCast enthusiast? Have you downloaded every episode within minutes of its
release? Do you take notes to distribute amongst your guild? Well then, this is the opportunity you’ve
been waiting for. Listen carefully to BlizzCast #10, answer the questions below, and you may just win
yourself a fantastic prize.

Check out the and .

Although tickets to the convention sold out in minutes, you can still join in with the
live Internet stream or via DIRECTV Pay Per View. The Virtual Ticket will feature 18 hours of BlizzCon coverage, including Ozzy’s live performance, as well as the BlizzCon 2009
exclusive in-game pet: Grunty the Murloc Marine.

Check out the to learn more.

Since this is a content update and not an expansion, don’t expect to see an opening cinematic. Instead, you’ll see in-game footage of massive dungeon fights and the Isle of Conquest battleground. If you’d rather see it in HD, you can download it for PC and Mac from the official site.

Ozzy told Classic Rock magazine in June he was looking for a new guitarist to replace Wylde, although Wylde said in an interview with a radio station on July 29 he’s never even gotten a phone call from Ozzy about being replaced.

So will Ozzy be at BlizzCon? The Blabbermouth article emphasizes “this information has not yet been corroborated by anyone in the Osbourne camp and should be treated as a rumor only.” So only time will tell to see if this actually happens. Members of the ZAM team will be on the floor at BlizzCon, so we’ll be sure to keep an eye out for the Prince of Darkness.

The weapon damage and armor of items in the 5-man heroic Coliseum have been updated to match their levels, and epic gem recipes are now available from Aldor and Scryer vendors in Shattrath. You can check out all nine fixes after the jump.

• The weapon damage and armor of items dropped in the 5-man Coliseum Heroic version have been updated to match their item level.
• Using Braxley’s Backyard Moonshine will no longer trigger the regurgitation animation.
• Wintergrasp Commendation and Commendation of Bravery can no longer be used inside any battlegrounds.
• Kel’Thuzad should no longer cause some players to disconnect during the encounter.
• Reginald Arcfire will no longer grant Horde players access to the Alliance auction house.
• Epic gem recipes are now available from the following vendors in Shattrath:

  Kirembri Silvermane (Scryer)
  Nemiha (Aldor)
  Inessera (Aldor)

• XT-002 Deconstructor will now spawn in fewer adds.
• The Black Knight will now drop a Frozen Orb in heroic difficulty.
• Razorgore can once again be controlled multiple times and defeated appropriately.

You can also check out WaxPaper’s excellent BlizzCon guide over here!

Whether you like the Prince of Darkness or not, BlizzCon will be filled with all sorts of news and announcements. You can find out how to order either the DirecTV footage or the Internet stream in our preview guide to BlizzCon. Also, keep an eye out for our coverage on ZAM.com during the event.

Baron Soosdon has created another entertaining, fun location, though this one is wildly different from the paradise he put together for Happy Up Here. I think if the Shortchange were an actual, functioning dance space is Azeroth, you could probably find dozens of Alliance jostling to get in.

I continue to be amazed at how well Soosdon pieces his musical choice together with the video he puts on screen. The rhythm, words, and general vibe of the music matches the thriving, vibrant graphics. Ultimately, this video was awesome, and is going to be one I replay frequently.

In case the embedded video doesn’t work out for you, you can check out a few different streams on the Baron’s blog.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Warriors Dance originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News items, Arena

Arena Season 6 to end soon originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The video embedded in today’s edition of The Queue isn’t a silly music video this time around, I’m afraid. No funny business today. Today is for game faces. Today is for serious business. Today is for italic letters.

Sashay asked…

“I have found a glitch that has caused many people to have their hearts broken.

This glitch is the “underground” mining technique that people use so they will not be attacked by enemies. Does this happen because they found a “Under Stormwind” glitch somewhere in Northrend? Maybe they put their toon in the tourney castle before it was built and now they are under everything?”

Continue reading The Queue: Exploits and dirty cheats

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight, The Queue

The Queue: Exploits and dirty cheats originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMOsite.com has nabbed some pictures of the return to the Chinese World of Warcraft. As you know if you’ve been paying attention, the game has been offline over there for a few months now, but the game just recently got approved to go back online, and so they’re in the middle of a “partial relaunch” (which I believe is taking the form of a closed beta) and the servers are crowding up again. As you can see, there’s a stampede (much like ours) going on in Thunder Bluff — looks like players are happy to be online again.

They also have some comparison images of the censorship found over there. Anything with skulls or bones on it is out, and the offending images have been replaced with piles of dirt and bags and debris. Blood appears as black oil rather than red liquid, and even player corpses are out. As you can see, everywhere players die, there are instead little graves and tombstones around. Very interesting. No idea if this actually “helps” in China (or what the point of the censorship is — seems as though it’s a cultural thing, more like it’s a respect for death and dead bodies rather than worrying about whether people will be disturbed by the mention of violence), but of course the government over there has final say on what goes into the game, and apparently this is what they approved. Hopefully Chinese players will be headed back to Northrend before long.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Leveling

Chinese WoW partial relaunch pics, comparison shots of censorship originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A few things about this Warcraft-flavored PC casemod, seen over on this Chinese website. First: it’s awesome. Warcraft art is faithfully recreated, and as you can see, there’s a nice Horde montage on one side, Alliance on the other, and the Dark Portal sitting right there in front. Second: it’s probably pretty old — most of that art is from the game’s original release four years ago.

So it’s probably not exactly the latest and greatest in Warcraft PC designs (though it might be a little later than the ghost train pirate art). But still, it looks great. And I definitely wouldn’t mind wandering around Azeroth on that rather than my current gigantic black tower of a PC.

Update: Turns out the case is for sale. That is, if you want to spend $299 on a case.

[via Technabob]

Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Human, Orcs, Mage, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, NPCs, Galleries

Chinese Warcraft casemod is awesome originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Plus, who knows what else we’ll see there — in the past, we’ve seen some great displays from Blizzard partners, and even a real-life server protest a few years back. Gen Con is one of the biggest gatherings of gamers in the country, and wherever there are gamers, odds are we’ll find World of Warcraft. It’ll be my first time seeing the convention this weekend, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Filed under: Events, Fan stuff, WoW Social Conventions, News items, Quests, WoW TCG

Upper Deck finalizes Gen Con plans originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My reasoning isn’t to nerf Holy Paladins as healers. I love all healers equally. Rather, my idea here is to incorporate a class design that’s been picking up steam since the end of Burning Crusade. Back before patch 3.0 dropped, two Paladin specs wore spell plate, Holy and Protection. Since that was two specs out of a possible six plate wearing talent specializations (2/6 = 1/3 = roughly 33 percent, I’m not doing a repeating) that meant that there was a fairly sizable minority that wanted the stuff.

Flash forward to Wrath of the Lich King. There are now three plate wearing classes. Two of them (six total talent specs) have absolutely no use for spell plate. The one class that does use spell plate? Well, the Protection tree was revamped, so tanking Paladins don’t wear it. Retribution has been giving spell plate the stink eye forever. So we now have 1 out of 9 possible specs wearing the stuff, and yet it drops everywhere. There’s no reason spell plate needs to exist, much less be a protected species by Blizzard when they went out of their way to do away with tanking leather, for example.

Continue reading Death to spell power plate

Filed under: Paladin, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, PvP, Forums, Arena

Death to spell power plate originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Gray Matter has a great post on Moonkin Leveling Spec and Glyphs.
• Patch 3.2 Impressions are all Shamantastic over at Shamantics
• OutDPS has a guide on how to use a great online Hunter DPS spreadsheet.
• Oxhorn’s take on the new races [spoilers].
  
• Finally, I provided some clarification last night on my personal blog as to why WoW.com does not reveal its sources in things like the Patch 3.2 release date or yesterday’s Cataclysm announcement.

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Shaman, The Daily Quest, Cataclysm

The Daily Quest: Moonkins Anonymous originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are all kinds of great little tidbits in here: originally, Warcraft III was planned with the over-the-shoulder look that WoW now has, and that’s one of the reasons they wanted to create a more straightforward RPG game. Tom Chilton showed up on the team about a year before WoW‘s release, and to his surprise, the game was almost completely unfinished — the level cap was only 15, the talent system wasn’t implemented, the AH or mail systems weren’t in, PvP wasn’t in at all (of course, even at release it was pretty barebones), and endgame raiding was nonexistent. Most of the things we think of as intrinsic to the World of Warcraft — even things like the Horde and Alliance not speaking to each other — were debated and almost not in at all as they moved towards release.

Continue reading The making of the World of Warcraft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding, Interviews

The making of the World of Warcraft originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Responses to the implementation of Patch 3.2 have been pretty mixed. I’ve been trying to see as much of it as I can. I loved Children’s Week, for example, but over the weekend, I ventured into Trial of the Champion, the new 5-man content in the Crusaders’ Coliseum. My curiosity had been piqued by talk of Hogger as a raid boss and whispers of the power to fight Illidan and Lucifron. Now, having never ventured into either Molton Core or Black Temple, I was quite keen to experience the encounter for myself. So I grouped with my guildies (who all seem quite addicted to the quick runs, easy fight and shiny loot) and headed into the unknown.

I was already aware that Trial of the Champion sees you fighting a bunch of champions on horseback, then getting either Eadric the Pure of High Confessor Paletress. We, luckily, got the latter. I like Paletress. She’s an intriguing character as well as an epitome of goodness who’s not afraid to fight for her beliefs. She also has the coolest attack in the Trial: she summons the memory of a past encounter. This was the bit I was waiting for and when Onyxia appeared, I was momentarily stunned.

Continue reading How the “Summon Memory” fight in the Trial of the Champion should have been done

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Bosses

How the “Summon Memory” fight in the Trial of the Champion should have been done originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sometimes you’d like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all those other shiny MMOs! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.

	Final Fantasy XIV’s first jobs and race names revealed New information is dropping rapidly on this game. Now, Final Fantasy XIV’s race names and first classes have been revealed. Hmm, maybe those rumors of an earlier than expected beta carried more weight to them than we thought.
	Former Warhammer Online GM gives perspective on game’s decline At Massively we must often report on declining subscription numbers and subsequent layoffs in the MMO industry, just as we do when the games we love are healthy and growing. When you look beyond the numbers though, such industry statistics are ultimately about people whose lives have been negatively impacted. They face uncertainty in their career and likely have tough times ahead.
	The Daze of Darkfall epilogue: The Siege of Andruk So I thought I was done with my whole “month long investigation of Darkfall.” Best way to end out the series was to include some PvP being lead by Wardragon Drow (*gasp*, a last name, and I’ll get to that in a second) and then close it off there. Well, sadly, Darkfall had one more surprise left for me. Or, should I say, the Blackrock Clan had one more surprise for me. A siege.
	Choose my Adventure: Lord of the Rings Online With our Guild Wars adventures behind us, it’s now time to branch out into our next game for the Choose my Adventure series. According to your votes accumulated this week, Lord of the Rings Online will be my next game to explore, with a little help from you, the readers. You also voted to keep the format the same, so I’m happy to hear that it’s been working well so far.

Continue reading MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Features

MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some things should be taken literally. Some things should not. Arinod of the <Armored Bear Cavalry> on Kargath US seems to have discovered one of those things that should not. Avinrod, the dashing fellow in the foreground, woke up one day to find the slightly-less-dashing fellow in the background following him around. No matter how many people tell the poor guy that’s not what Shadow Priest means… well. Shadows can’t hear, apparently. Avin, my friend, it might be time to look into a restraining order.

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, gold seller ads with dead gnomes any race at all, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Filed under: Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth: Me and my shadow originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Prince of F!@$#ng Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, has officially been announced as headlining the closing concert at BlizzCon this year. We’ve previously reported on this, both in the rumor mill and then from a DirecTV listing.

The DirecTV listing has since been changed to remove any reference to Ozzy, however it appears they jumped the gun on the announcement initially.

The press announcement of the closing concert, which was just released this morning, doesn’t give many details of anything special that will happen. Other than “Ozzy will unleash a thunderous spectacle of rock to put the Lich King in his place and cement his own title as the one true Prince of Darkness.” Morhaime goes on to say that “Many of us at Blizzard are lifelong fans of Ozzy’s music, and we’re thrilled that he’ll be performing for all of our BlizzCon attendees…”

So there you have it. Rumor confirmed! I wonder what else might be announced… WoW.com will let you know!

Edit: Check out the Ozzy splash at the World of Warcraft Homepage.

BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We’ve got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there’s some great looking costumes.

Filed under: Events, News items, BlizzCon

Blizzard officially announces Ozzy at BlizzCon 2009 originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Happy Tuesday to our European readers! We’re nearly halfway through August, BlizzCon is just 10 days away and we already know what races we’ll be playing in the next expansion. The sun is shining and the internet is thrumming with promise of something Cataclysmic approaching. It can’t get any better than that! I’m already thinking of names for my alts. Any suggestions?

(Note to self: hyperactivity in posts is not a good thing. You might want to start drinking coffee to mask the new-expansion-news-high.)

But back to reality for a minute. As usual, the middle of the week is once more upon us. Fortunately things are starting to calm down. Blizzard have just announced scheduled maintenance for tomorrow with all European realms will be offline from 3:00am until 11:00am (CEST). On top of this, a selection of ‘lucky’ realms will be undergoing an extended maintenance from 1:00am until 11:00am (CEST):

Alonsus, Anachronos, Bronze Dragonflight, Burning Steppes, Darkmoon Faire, Darkspear, Kor’gall and Lightbringer.

That said, it’s not too bad as extended down time goes. But as always there’s plenty to do in the meantime, especially as we’ve told you which faction will be getting which race in Cataclysm. Daniel W. has a great post summing everything up from news to hints about Patch 3.3.

Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status, Blizzard, News items, Expansions, Europe

European weekly maintenance: 12th August 2009 originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlizzCon approaches! Preparing for BlizzCon is your regular source for tips on how best to prepare for Blizzard’s gaming extravaganza. These helpful hints are particularly suited for convention rookies. But if you are a con veteran, we’d love to hear your advice and wisdom in the comments as well.

Backpack, messenger bag, extra large purse — whatever you are toting into the Anaheim Convention Center should be filled with a few basic things in order to get the most from BlizzCon. The catch is that it cannot be any bigger than 10″x20″ and it cannot contain any of the following:

• Desktop computers, laptops, electronic storage devices (unless you have a press pass)
• Glass bottles, cans, large containers (this limits some of your food options should you choose to carry-in)
• Alcohol (leave your cool flask or teeny airplane booze bottles in your hotel room)
• Weapons and fireworks (Captain Obvious is making giggle noises.)

Join us after the break for what you can and should stuff in your BlizzCon-bag.

Continue reading Preparing for BlizzCon: What to pack in your backpack

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, BlizzCon

Preparing for BlizzCon: What to pack in your backpack originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Ladies and gentlemen, behold. This is the most important addon you will ever find in your entire World of Warcraft career: Iron Chef.
• 4 Haelz has some tips for Resto Druids looking to tackle the Northrend Beasts in the new raid zone.
• And for you Hunters, OutDPS has a guide for you, too.
• Too Many Annas has posted the first place winner of the A Midsummer Night’s RP writing contest.
• Into esports? Then check out the details for MLG’s upcoming World of Warcraft tourney in Dallas.

Filed under: The Daily Quest

The Daily Quest: Could use a bell pepper right now originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Downtime is scheduled to start at 5:00AM PDT/8:00AM EDT and end at approximately 11:00AM PDT/2:00PM EST. This is, of course, assuming no extra maintenance time is tacked on due to issues.

Disclaimer: Patch 3.3 is not coming out today. But, you can certainly read up on the new additions to the game with Patch 3.2 in our Guide to Patch 3.2 if you need to kill some time whilst you wait for your server(s) to come back up.

Filed under: Realm News, Realm Status

Weekly Maintenance – August 11th, 2009 originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It would be pretty fun to roll up a Priest of Janeiro and have some fun with a Ferengi-like religion of greed that believes that he with the most toys is blessed by Heaven and that not only can you take it with you, you’d better take it with you so that you can bribe your way into a better afterlife.

But anyway, leaks aside, there’s plenty of other news to read up on this morning during the 5 AM to 11 AM Pacific downtime. Patch 3.2‘s been out for a week, and if you haven’t been able to keep abreast of all the changes, you’ll probably want to take a peek at a few of our guides.

Check out those and more stories below:

Continue reading Tuesday Morning Post: Have I got a leak for you Edition

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Odds and ends, News items

Tuesday Morning Post: Have I got a leak for you Edition originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The first crack in that sense of disdain for the class was the starting zone experience. Anyone who’s done it knows it’s one heck of a well designed start to finish piece of gameplay. It was so well done, in fact, that I actually rerolled several DK’s in an attempt to find the one race I really liked, secure in the knowledge that not only would I start at level 55 and be Outland ready by the end, but I’d enjoy the trip. After that, I blew through Outland on a Tauren, Gnome, Draenei and Dwarf before finally settling on my Night Elf here. Heirloom shoulders made the already painless starting zone even more rapid and Outland fell away like a solid fuel booster rocket lifting me to Northrend before I’d even finished Nagrand.

Now here I am at level 80, and for once I actually have a third alt at max level (not counting the old days when I had four level 60/level 70 warriors – I’m sad to report I only have three 80 warriors now) of a different class. Gearing the DK’s been interesting, and as I’ve run myself through various content my DPS has been steadily increasing, my understanding of my specs steadily expanding (frankly, I love Blood as a DPS spec, it has so many cooldowns for AoE damage and a nice bag of tricks without being as fiddly as Unholy, and I can’t say enough good things about Frost as a tank spec) – I have to admit, I’ve totally turned around on DKs. They’re awfully broken in my eyes (even after the most recent nerfs to their cooldowns and tanking health) but I cannot pretend to be having a bad time playing the class.

So now I turn to you. What class turned out to be a surprise hit with you once you tried it out?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast topics, Alts, Death Knight

Breakfast Topic: Loving the class you hate originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. What exactly is Lightwell? How is it used? Why does no one use it?

Oh Lightwell. The things you could have been. Misunderstood by many and under-talented by a large number of Priests. Will you ever see raids?

Perhaps not. But we can try!

Lightwell

The first thing Lightwell novices need to understand is the purpose of the spell. It creates a Holy Lightwell wherever you want it that any player can interact with. A player who uses it gains a charge that heals them for more than 4500 health over a period of 6 seconds. It’s got a 40 yard placement range. Be sure you pick up the Lightwell glyph for it. A 20% boost to Lightwell ticks go a long way and will help make this talent even more worthwhile.

There is a slight downside. If the player under the effect of a Lightwell charge takes a hit that’s 30% of their total health, the effect disappears.

Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: A Lightwell primer

Filed under: Priest, Tips, Tricks, Raiding, Talents, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

Spiritual Guidance: A Lightwell primer originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Of course we answered your emails as well — we talked with Michael Sacco about the “Additional instances can’t be launched” issue that’s going around (that I got hit with for the first time yesterday, actually), and a reader emailed us about BRK’s gun — so awesome to see our friend get recognized, and deservedly so. It was an excellent show, in my humble opinion, and a great way to squeeze a week’s worth of WoW news into just one hour.

This week, the podcast will be at a special time — we’ll be going live on Thursday at 1pm Eastern. That’s a little earlier than we usually do it, but it should give our friends overseas a chance to tune in when they might not have been able to before (and if you can’t make it live, don’t worry, the recording will be in iTunes soon after). See you then!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Listen here on the page:

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Podcasts, Podcasting, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Instances, Humor, Classes, NPCs, WoW Insider Show

WoW Insider Show Episode 102: Stupid big-tongues originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They also look forward to BlizzCon: all of the developer panels and meetings that go on there, both from the perspective of fans (hey, we actually can be literate and reasonable instead of QQing all the time!) and from developers (turns out they are “not just blue text” — who knew?!). It’s not a super groundbreaking podcast, but as a wrapup to the release of 3.2 and a short preview to BlizzCon, it works just fine. And there’s a bonus: Zarhym is offering up a contest — answer some questions about the podcast after you listen to it, and you could win a “fabulous prize.” The rules give away what the prize is: a Draenei vs. Blood Elf diorama or some action figures.

And remember, if you’ve missed any of the BlizzCast episodes so far, you can find them both in iTunes or over on Blizzard’s site, or just read our wrapups here on WoW.com.

Filed under: Podcasting, Blizzard, News items, Instances, Bosses, BlizzCon, Battlegrounds

BlizzCast episode 10 released originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself by contacting our tips line (attention: World of WarCrafts) — not-for-profit work only, please.

Who doesn’t love original artwork that expresses the essence of your character? We were captivated by the character sketch Elnore of Argent Dawn-US sent us to go with her recent profile in 15 Minutes of Fame. As it turns out, the guildmate behind the artwork has just begun to accumulate a small portfolio of simple sketches.

“I’ve been sketching since I can remember, really, but not seriously until I was a teenager,” says Aigie. “I enjoy challenging myself with different perspectives and the process at which I got from point A to point B. This is why I use Artpad for most of my sketching. Sure, it’s not the top of the line program and it’s free — but it has a replay button, and you can see the logical process in which my work evolves. (And did I mention it was free? Hehe.)”

Continue reading World of WarCrafts: Aigie’s character sketches

Filed under: Fan stuff, Features, World of WarCrafts

World of WarCrafts: Aigie’s character sketches originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If there’s one thing I absolutely don’t miss in Ulduar, it’s the Troggs. I’ll admit to being a little surprised that I haven’t run into any, but as far as I’m concerned that’s just fine.

So, yeah, this week I forgot to train my new Call of the Elements, Call of the Ancestors, and Call of the Spirits spells. Since I’d been on the PTR and knew that I was supposed to train them I find this especially hilarious in retrospect, although I didn’t find it nearly as funny at the time. There was some swearing, I won’t pretend otherwise. Also, if you’re a leveling shaman make sure to check the trainers as you hit 30, 40 and 50 to make sure you pick them up, as they’re terribly useful even for the soloing shaman. (Depending on mana, you might not want to drop four totems while soloing/questing, but it’s still terribly convenient to be able to do so with one button and one GCD when things get hairy.)

Continue reading Totem Talk: Four totems for the price of one

Filed under: Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Four totems for the price of one originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Blizzard’s been inserting new icons in every patch. You know those little square graphics that appear next to spell or item descriptions? They’ve been revising some that were shared across several items and gave them entirely new icons. It doesn’t appear on the patch notes, but some spells got new icons – such as the Black Tabby, which got a new icon back in Patch 3.1.

Here in Patch 3.2, we see two new cooking icons which are probably going to be related to some world events – the Bread of the Dead and Cranberry Chutney. Both have new, unique icons. Personally, I think spell and item icons are a small but important part of what makes the game feel unique. Some icons are funny, some are really colorful, and some are even plain sexy. Some icons were actually confusing – remember when flying carpets all looked like Runecloth? That was dumb, but Blizzard got around to setting things right.

There are cool spell and talent icons, too. Some icons look exactly like the item they represent, some icons are totally generic, and some icons are hard to make heads or tails of, although that’s probably what Blizzard is slowly trying to eliminate. Did anybody notice how they changed icons for the Cockroach and the Magical Crawdad Box? Blizzard didn’t have to, certainly, but I for one appreciate the little things. Like I said, small parts of the game that give it its unique feel. Are there any icons in particular that stand out for you? What are your favorites? Dislikes? If anything, I’ll take this opportunity to give a shout out to the amazing art team at Blizzard responsible for those little square things. Oh, and if you can name all those icons pictured above… you probably need professional help.

Filed under: Odds and ends, Breakfast topics

Breakfast Topic: Iconography originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Love your Warlock more than your childhood pet? Obsess over DPS charts at the end of every raid? Spend hours scanning Armory profiles of top rated Warlocks to analyze their gear and spec? Read Warlock blogs and Elitist Jerk’s Warlock forums on a daily basis? We may have an offer you can’t refuse.

WoW.com is looking for a new writer to be our weekly Warlock class columnist for Blood Pact. Every week you will dazzle our readers with your words of wisdom covering everything from leveling guides to raid tactics to PvP strats to major Patch analysis to recommended AddOns for all specs and playstyles. You don’t need to play all those ways (we all need a life), but you need to be able to research and write on the topics you don’t have personal experience with.

If this sounds like the chance you’ve been waiting for, you’ll find all the information you need to apply on our applications page. Be sure to submit everything asked for. Being able to follow simple instructions is part of the job. You have until end of day, Sunday, August 16th to send in your app before this message is consumed by Hellfire and is no more.

Filed under: Warlock, WoW Insider Business, (Warlock) Blood Pact

Wow.com burns for a Warlock columnist originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I found this picture that reader Murkowsky sent in while browsing through the archives. It’s of an honest attempt at a fireworks show, complete with many people setting off many different fireworks at the right time. All this happened on the realm Gnomeregan last July. I actually think I was around watching it too. Small world! The shot is nicely timed and the fireworks are nicely placed. Oohhh, ahhhh! That’s amazing!

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, gold seller ads with dead gnomes, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Filed under: Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth: Big Bada Boom! originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

So welcome back to a full week of The Queue folk, and indeed this week will be a full one for The Queue. As Alex and I have mentioned before, when patches roll around and other big things come up our availability to spend a couple hours writing The Queue and The Daily Quest diminishes significantly. But this week nothing is on the radar, so here we are.

Next week though, The Queue and The Daily Quest will only appear Monday and Tuesday; unless something unexpected happens. We have to prepare for BlizzCon and actually spend a few hours away from our computers packing and all that. But this week? We’re all Queue’d off and roaring to go.

Milesdfreeman asked…

“Do we know anything about Patch 3.3 yet? What raids if any will it have? New features?”

Continue reading The Queue: Wherein The Queue has as much consistency as Smodcast

Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, The Queue, Cataclysm

The Queue: Wherein The Queue has as much consistency as Smodcast originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This video was absolutely gorgeous. It’s filled with brilliant and breathtaking views. The technical aspects of Snoman’s work are leaps and bounds above much machinima, and every angle and scene shows off his incredible eye for detail. I’m usually hesitant to use words like “gorgeous,” but I can think of few videos that deserve it as much as Shining Dreamscape.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Shining Dreamscape originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers’ Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Every raid leader has this moment. You’re trying to get the raid ready for a boss attempt, but you just can’t get people to focus. Someone’s taking a quick bio. Two people are still arguing over the loot from three bosses ago. Another person is whispering you ill-conceived advice for changing your strategy. People seem to be more interested in listening to your healing lead talk in Vent about a movie she just saw than they are in buffing or putting on resist gear. Then someone that you can’t replace DC’s for the eighth time that night and you just snap.

You wonder if it’s worth it. You wonder what it would be like to be a grunt rather than a general. Someone who just follows orders and doesn’t have to worry about anyone but themselves. Sprinkle in some real-life stress in your life and retiring from raid leading suddenly seems very appealing. This week, one officer wonders how to give up his general’s stripes without causing too much fuss.

‘Lo there,

The issue, in part, is that RL has started rearing its ugly head, and my work hours have been slowly increasing. [. . .]

Continue reading Officers’ Quarters: The raid leader retirement plan

Filed under: (Guild Leadership) Officers’ Quarters

Officers’ Quarters: The raid leader retirement plan originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW.com has learned through multiple sources close to the situation some details on the next expansion, to be called World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

As we’re getting into the season of news and information, all major leaks and spoilers will be happening after the break. If you don’t want your surprises ruined for you, don’t read this post. If you want to know, click after the break and enjoy. This policy worked well for us during the testing phase of Wrath of the Lich King and we’re pleased to continue it now.

After the break, the new playable races of Cataclysm.

Continue reading Cataclysm races leaked

Filed under: News items, Cataclysm

Cataclysm races leaked originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Once you sign up for an account, you can list up to 3 characters per a screen name and start keeping track of which mounts you have and which mounts you want to have. You can also ignore the mounts you don’t want or can’t get. Once you have it all sorted out, you can share your collection with others if you wish (For example, here’s Mania’s collection).

The site has always been a pretty handy tool for mount collectors or people who just want a refresher about what forms of locomotion are out there, and the collection tool only makes it better. Kudos to Mania, who’s once again come through with a nice little tool for the WoW community.

Filed under: Fan stuff, News items, Mounts, Achievements

Warcraft Mounts helps you keep track of your corral originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patch week? Oh, yeah. Speaking of patch week, we all knew that patch week was going to be rough. We knew there would be delays, and bugs, and restarts, and false starts. We knew that hardcore players would gripe, that newbies would be confused and that there would be plenty of contentious debate from all sides.

What we didn’t know is that we could be caught unaware by even geek crafts. Take it from mibluvr13, who took one look at the baby Hordie shirt
featured in this week’s World of WarCrafts column and began groping for the Escape key. “Ooooh, god,” mibluvr13 moaned. “I never thought WoW.com would punch me in the biological clock. BRB, having a kid.”

The week in reader comments, through the bleary eyes of our punch-drunk, patch-distracted readers, after the break.

Continue reading [1.Local]: Speaking of patch week chatter

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Features, [1.Local]

[1.Local]: Speaking of patch week chatter originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today’s image (and caption) comes from Manbearpig from the guild Clandestine Circle, on the Garona-US realm. He says, “After growing up a poor bullied cub in Teldrassil, Manbearpig wasn’t just going to stand by and watch these Frenzyheart keep the poor Oracle Orphan from his shinies any more! Rawr! Volunteering his time, Manbearpig hopes to teach this young Oracle that to deal with bullies you have to stand up for yourself. Tell them “No! Stop it!” in a loud voice. Then walk away, or run if you have to. If all else fails, then Mangle (Rank 5)!”

Personally, I’d start with the whole Mangle thing a lot sooner than that. I’m not really sure what that says about me, to be honest.

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, gold seller ads with dead gnomes any race at all, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Filed under: Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth: Violence begets violence. Awesomely. originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I have to admit something, I’m a chronic leveler. I do it over and over. Yes, I know it’s not the typical play style. Yes, I also know it’s highly unorthodox. By now you are probably thinking, “Who in their right mind would want to be a chronic leveler?” That someone would be me.

See when I get bored, and the game starts to become a bit of a drag I can’t help myself. It only becomes a matter of time till I feel the need to scratch an itch to start over. Yes, I know it’s crazy. But you can look at it this way, at least I know how the game works for the beginning Hunter just as well as the raiding one.

Having done this a few times now, I thought it would idea to put this experience to some practical purpose. It seems to be a waste and not at least write up a Hunter guide for new Hunters. So I thought I’d create a new series of posts entitled, “So you want to be a Hunter.”

Before we get started, I need to make sure we’re all on the same page by setting some ground rules.

1. This series is intended for the new player and/or a new Hunter.
2. Since most new player won’t have a rich uncle in game, nor does everyone use Recruit-A-Friend, I’ll just focus on leveling up the old fashioned way.
3. When discussing zone and levels, I’ll only highlight some key quests along the way.
4. Except for when we reach the “getting ready to raid” guide, all guides will focus on using a solo-leveling/grinding build.

So there, with some ground rules set. Let’s get started on making you the best Hunter possible.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: So you want to be a Hunter – Part 1 Racials

Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Night Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Draenei, Blood Elves, Leveling, Factions, Guides, Classes, (Hunter) Scattered Shots

Scattered Shots: So you want to be a Hunter – Part 1 Racials originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to another edition of Arcane Brilliance, the weekly Mage column where you can find all the latest issues that are important to those of us who can alter the molecular structure of our enemies, conjure great missiles of entwined flame and ice, and create delicious pastries from the very air around us, but can’t seem to negotiate the mysteries of wearing anything more substantial than a fancy bathrobe into battle. Mages: masters of the arcane, failures at dressing.

Let me begin with a few nice things. These are things I like–things that do not, in principle, infuriate me. We’ll get to things that do a bit later. I’ll hide them after the jump, I suppose, so as not to annoy those of you who cannot stand to see even the most minor of complaints from any class but your own. For now, we’ll be positive and cheery, and illustrate that–as it ever has been and ever will be–there are aspects of this game that I love, and aspects that I simultaneously do not. Such is life on the class-balance carousel. As a Mage with a pulpit from which to preach, I will never cease to celebrate the changes I agree with, and decry those which I consider to be affronts to Magekind.

Preamble aside, let me tell you what I love right now: our mana gems no longer share a cooldown with Warlock healthstones. Yes, though it wasn’t in the patch notes, this seems to be an undocumented change that has made it live, and one that Mages have been lobbying in favor of for a very, very long time. For far too long, we’ve been largely unable to take advantage of the one good thing Warlocks have to offer, for fear that we’d use one and then not be able to pop our own mana returning item when the need arose. No more! Dying? Need a few thousand health in a hurry and can’t wait for the healer to notice you’re on death’s doorstep? Ice Block on cooldown? Use that healthstone with impunity, my fellow Mages!

More good stuff after the break. Also bad stuff. If you dine on Mage tears, feel free to wring the second half of this column for whatever sustenance it might provide.

Continue reading Arcane Brilliance: Good and Bad in patch 3.2

Filed under: Mage, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP, Features, Raiding, Classes, Talents, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

Arcane Brilliance: Good and Bad in patch 3.2 originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not a rumor and it’s no longer a surprise – Ozzy Osbourne is going to appear at BlizzCon 2009, according to the program details of DirecTV. Unless Blizzard’s partner for the live stream content is just goofing around, “a special appearance” pretty much confirms that the Prince of Darkness is going to perform in Anaheim this August. The news first started as a rumor that sprung from Zakk Wylde’s Twitter message about a month back, corroborated by another rumor that another guitarist would be performing with Ozzy at BlizzCon.

Here’s to hoping that Ozzy Osbourne’s special appearance means he’ll actually rock out on stage. As cool as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain are, I’m sure Samwise and his crew will actually enjoy the show (and who says they won’t join up for one big supergroup?). Azeroth has its own Prince of Darkness, but having the real deal perform should be a special treat, just as it’s sure to be something all fans can look forward to. It seems like another incentive to get the DirecTV package in addition to that cute, gun-toting murloc. With BlizzCon stepping up in the show department, I wonder what other big things are in store for us this year.

Ozzy UK Blizzard commercial after the jump!

Thanks, Milkingit!

Continue reading Ozzy at BlizzCon confirmed!

Filed under: Fan stuff, Blizzard, News items, BlizzCon

Ozzy at BlizzCon confirmed! originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Top of my list was to try out the new Druid forms and then get my hair colored. The rest of my guild made a beeline for “the new place” (aka the Coliseum) or moaning about the buffing/nerfing of such and such a class. So, constant readers, what did you do first? More importantly, what do you think of the patch? I admit I’m still sitting on the fence, there were some nice additions but I’m still a heck of a lot more interested in patch 3.3. Tell us in the usual fashion by dropping your thoughts in the box below.

Filed under: Druid, Patches, Events, Blizzard, Breakfast topics, Wrath of the Lich King, Europe

Breakfast Topic: So what do you think of patch 3.2? originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Somewhere in the list today is the secret identity of last week’s “mystery” picture!

• Check out Noobs, a new comic, and one that is not to be confused with NoObz, which isn’t WoW-related this week.
• Scout Report: We finally find out why Scout’s sister is hanging around! This of course leads to a rather strange conversation, about kittens (of a sort).
• Cru the Dwarf: Bless This Thy Holy Boot. Well, they’ve reached the Scarlet Monastery. The message at the bottom says it all!
• Dark Legacy Comics: Gretta’s Plan.
• Experience Points: Vincent is planning his trip to BlizzCon with his new pal, Steve.
• Experience Points: Vincent hangs out with Steve on patch day. I am kind of afraid of his sandwich.
• LFG: Meet the Mistress of Magma.
• NPC: Overcome.
• NPC: A break seems to be in the couple’s future, but Smelly Demographics shows the flaw in the first activity suggested. So, they decide to take a different sort of trip, because they’ve had Too Much WoW.
• Check out the latest from Teh Gladiators.
• Kuo: This guest comic is awesomely cute, and in translation. For regular comics, evidently, Sylvanas just wasn’t as cool before she died.
• Beyond the Tree: No purse, no pursuit.
• WoW-eh: The Mis-Adventures of….

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, Humor, Sunday Morning Funnies

Sunday Morning Funnies: Lookin’ familiar originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Drak’Theron Keep Final Boss

I was inspired to write this entry from some questions I was asked by one of my beloved Regular Readers who plays a Warlock on World of Warcraft and has only recently delved into the world of Raiding.

We Love You Warlocks, But You Know Why…

It’s for your Summons and your Soulstones more than anything else.

Okay, I’ll admit, it’s not the reason we choose YOU over any kind of Melee DPS like Death Knights, Rogues, Warriors or Enhancement Shaman – we choose you at that point because of the overabundance of Melee DPS in the WoTLK.

But when it comes to making a decision about selecting a Warlock vs a Mage/Elemental Shaman/Boomkin/Shadow Priest, you know that the primary reason we choose you IS NOT because of your awesome DPS.

It’s because a well-placed Soulstone can save a lot of time in a dungeon or a raid instance, and your ability to create a Summoning Stone also saves the team a lot of time when the group is first getting together, running back after a wipe, or is picking up a new member to replace someone who dropped.

The Solo Soulstone

Your first introduction, dear Warlock, to the Soulstone was when you were a very little Warlock.

You learned it before level 25 and if you realized what you were looking at, you saw a lot of value in it right away, and quickly put it to use in your solo questing by Soulstoning yourself.

Remember the ENDLESS number of corpse runs you were able to avoid because of this neat Warlock tool?

If you were anything like me in your lowbie Warlock days, you even got into the habit of taking bigger risks (taking on more mobs than usual) when questing with your Soulstone on, and then playing in a much more conservative way when it was on cooldown and used up.

Just having a Soulstone as a soloing Warlock lets me push myself and advance faster through quests and levels, because I can circumvent the run back from the graveyard!

The Soulstone In 5-player Dungeons and Heroics

When you first started going into dungeons as a newbie Warlock, you may not have realized that the Etiquette rules for Soulstoning change once a Warlock enters into a dungeon instance.

If this is your second character coming up, you might have learned it by watching other Warlocks being taught the lesson. If so, consider yourself fortunate, because some party members aren’t all that nice when “educating” new Warlocks.

In a dungeon situation just like the Solo situation, the Warlock is expected to apply the Soulstone to team member for whom it would benefit the team the most.

In the case of Solo play, the Warlock is the only team member who is important (since player pets cannot click the “Use Soulstone to Resurrect” button after they die) so it makes sense that they Soulstone themselves. When in a party situation, however, the Soulstone would be much better used on a teammate.

In specific, the teammate a Warlock should apply a Soulstone to will have the following major trait:

• Can resurrect fellow party members who die

A good “rule of thumb” to stick with is that the Healer of the party gets the Soulstone.

Why Not Soulstone The Tank?

It seems logical to think that maybe instead of SS’ing the Healer, that the Tank should be Soulstoned, because, after all, at a certain level of play if the Tank dies, the whole party is pretty much doomed to die as well. Wouldn’t it make better sense to SS the Tank so she/he can pop up again and resume the fight?

Unfortunately, this logic is missing some key information about how it’s possible for a Tank to do their job in the first place, and when explained, makes it even more clear why the Healer should get the SS and not the Tank:

Wee Pally Practicing Tanking Basics

• In order to “tank” mobs, Tanks need to maintain a certain % of threat/aggro from mobs above and beyond what the DPS and Healers are generating.
  • At the start of a fight, it takes a moment for tanks to generate enough threat for the rest of the party to join in on the battle.

  • When a Tank dies, threat from all mobs is dropped to ZERO, and mobs begin to target the rest of the party members.
  • DPS and Healers maintain their positions on the Threat meters.

From the information above it should be pretty clear that even if a Tank does resurrect themselves at this point in the battle, it’s going to be nearly impossible for her/him to regain their position on the top of the Threat Meters for all of the mobs that are now bouncing around between DPS and Healers. Might as well call a wipe.

Soulstoning of Healers In Dungeons And Raids

If, on the other hand, a Healer is Soulstoned and faces an opportunity to use it, the scenario goes more like:

• SS’d Healer dies, all threat from all mobs is dropped to zero.

• Healer uses the Soulstone to resurrect, and quickly self-heals. Having no threat from mobs is GOOD!
• Healer is able to heal the (majority of the) group through the rest of the pull, preventing a wipe

Alternatively:

• SS’d Healer dies, all threat from all mobs is dropped to zero.

• Healer observes the situation and sees that the group cannot win this pull, and stays dead until all die.
• Healer takes the SS rez once the battle is over, and resurrects the teammates on the spot, saving time for moving forward

Soulstoning Summary

The Soulstone is an awesome Warlocky invention that looks simplistic in graphic and design, but holds within it the greatest time savings known to raiding, dungeon runs and solo questing.

Learn how to use it well, learn how to be notified when it’s time to re-apply (especially in Dungeons and Raids) and you’ll most definitely stand out as a superior-quality Warlock!

Related Posts

1. WoW Healing Tips: When To Let Them Die
2. Old World Instance, Dire Maul West, Warlock Felsteed
3. Level 80 Warlock Pre-Raid Gearing Guide for WoW

Heal Timing Is Critical With Adds

As a Healer, whether we be Priest, Paladin, Shaman or Druid… our main job is to Heal. And we do it, judiciously, don’t we, Healers?

However, as a Healer, one soon learns that sacrifices need to be made, because mana is not infinite, nor are our heals all instant-cast with huge instant hits.

And sometimes as a reward for our Healing, we actually get group-attacked by monsters if things aren’t going right!

Letting Them Die In Dungeon vs Raids

In this particular instance, there is absolutely no difference between Dungeon Healing and Raid Healing when it comes to deciding who to let die and who to focus on making sure lives.

Someone I know has a forum signature which is an awesome rule of thumb for a Healer, even though it doesn’t go into great detail nor does it cover all healing scenarios:

If the Tank dies, it’s the Healer’s fault. If the Healer dies, it’s the Tank’s fault. If the DPS dies, it’s their own damned fault.

Of course, many DPS don’t like this statement, because they figure it’s the “healer’s job to heal them”, but there’s important information they’re missing when they get upset.

If The Tank Dies, It’s The Healer’s Fault

Simply put, the Tank is the Healer’s main priority in a group setting, because at certain levels, if the Tank dies, then the whole party is doomed to die very quickly afterwards.

Who’s The Healer Healing?

In low-level instances (up to, say, Outland) “the tank” isn’t really as key as they are at higher levels, but that’s also reflected in the smaller amount of healing the entire group will require in low level instances. These low levels are meant to be extremely forgiving while people are just starting to learn how to play their class, which is why it’s good for a Healer to jump into PUG dungeon runs before hitting Outland levels.

Once you get to Outland instances, and certainly into Northrend ones, having a specific person performing “tanking duties” helps coordinate the efforts of the team, and the concentration of the healer must improve from pre-Outland levels as well. This is where DPS players have to start improving their game as well, instead of relying on the healer to save their ass every time they pull aggro.

At this Outland point, Healers will begin to feel more pressure from DPS who haven’t learned how to control their aggro – it’s funny how some dead DPS think it beneficial to be demanding on the Healer while the fight is still going on, asking why they didn’t get any heals in a chaotic situation.

If The Healer Dies, It’s The Tank’s Fault

You and me, Tanky, are a team.

Dual Priest Angelics

We learn very early in our dungeon running to work together as a more cohesive unit than what we worry about with the DPS, and over time and with practice, we get pretty good at it.

Like the Tank, if the Healer dies, unless there’s a backup healer to pick up the slack, the rest of the party is generally doomed to death as well.

Of course, this isn’t always true, depending on when the healer died and how many mobs were left, and what level of dungeon you’re in.

Because the Healer is so critical for the Tank’s own survival, one of the Tank’s responsibilities is to make sure the Healer is defended and watched over more than anyone else in the group. (hey DPS, you can earn brownie points with both the Tank and Healer if you help out with this Healer defense)

Thankfully, a good tank gets to the point where taunting the attention of a mob off of a Healer or a DPS becomes second nature, and therefore DPS who mistakenly pull aggro once in a while don’t get their faces bashed in each time

If The DPS Dies It’s Their Own Damned Fault

Here’s the final part of that statement, and the part that holds the most controversy.

After all, DPS are just as important to the overall success of the party as the Tank and Healer, right? If there were no DPS, dungeon runs would be slow and painful, and some boss fights would be impossible because the boss would hit an enrage timer and squish the Tank and Healer no matter how well-geared they were.

Yes and no – Sure, DPS are important, but the definition of a good damage dealer is something like this:

Quality DPS players are able to generate maximum damage without pulling aggro from the Tank.

That being said, we all know that very few dungeon runs or raids are perfectly coordinated in a way that doesn’t result in DPS pulling aggro or getting aggro in some way, and that DPS are an important member of the overall team and cannot therefore be ignored completely.

So, how does a Healer go about deciding when to let a DPS die?

When To Let Them Die

In a lot of ways, it’s up to the individual healer to decide their tolerance for other people’s playing styles.

Some people enjoy the challenge of a chaotic group because it challenges their own healing and healer self-defense skills, and for them, I say “don’t let any of them die”!

But for the average healer, the problem boils down to this:

The more you heal, the more threat you generate with mobs in battle, and the higher your chance is of pulling aggro and being killed yourself.

How it often happens is this:

Battle is started, and DPS pulls aggro early in. The heavier the heals the squishy DPS needs to be kept alive, the more Healer threat generated on every mob in the battle, and the harder the Tank has to work to keep the mobs from making a bee-line to the Healer. Chaos ensues, death usually results somewhere.

If you’re tired of dying because the Tank couldn’t keep the mobs off of you, consider these suggestions:

• Give the Tank a few seconds to get aggro on all the mobs in a pull before casting your first heal.
  • Optimally, the Tank should be the first one to get a heal in a fight, and DPS should only need occasional heals. Healing DPS too early in a fight is a recipe for pulling Healing aggro which regularly results in Healer death.
• If a DPS pulls multiple mobs by accident, let the Tank get into the battle before casting any heals, even if it means that DPS dies in the mean time.
  • It’s unlikely the DPS has enough control of all the mobs to protect you, the Healer, from being mass-attacked after your first heal lands, so wait until your Tank buddy gets in there and gets control, or you’ll end up dead.
• If you ever have to decide between giving the Tank a heal and giving anyone else a heal, decide on the Tank unless it’s you who is just about to die.
  • Dead Healers do crappy Heals. Stay alive as a priority.
• If you’re low on mana and the fight isn’t just about over, save your mana for the Tank.
  • Saying “low on mana, dps watch yourselves” in the party line is adequate warning to the team.
• If you’ve got a DPS who seems to be obsessed with doing a lot of damage but is constantly pulling aggro, one or two deaths usually slows them down a bit.
  • If you feel this DPS is carrying the entire group, you may wish to pretend they’re actually the Tank, but if you know your Tank is a good one, support your Tank and their role as group leader as a priority.
• If you’ve got a DPS who attacks the wrong targets, or stands in the wrong place and pulls extra aggro, they probably spend more time running around screaming than they do DPSing, so it’s okay if you let them die.

Using Your Healing Power For Good

As a Healer, you’ll always have an easy time getting into dungeon groups and if you’re interested at level 80, raid teams. Dungeons cannot be run without a healer for the most part (farming instances or running friends through aside), and the grand majority of World of Warcraft players select damage-dealing specializations even if their character is capable of specializing in healing.

Because of this, you, dear Healer, will also be able to pick and choose your dungeon-running friends over time, filtering out players who made your Healing job harder and playing more often with those who contributed to those fast, clean, smooth runs we all get so much joy out of.

So don’t worry about letting some of the chaos-lovers die, and don’t worry about the cruel words they throw at you during their moments of frustration at having died AGAIN…

When those chaos-loving DPS want to run another instance and whisper you asking to heal it (and they will, even if they insulted you for letting them die), YOU have all the power and control.

Say yes to heal in chaos in order to improve your own healing skills!

Say no to healing in chaos on the days you just don’t have the patience for it.

And let the DPS die whenever they piss you off.

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