World of Warcraft : blizzard

WotLK Blue Posts, BlizzCon 08, Blizzard Authenticators

Zyuu — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:29:10 GMT

WotLK Beta - Blue Posts

Plans for more debuff slots (src)
We would like to increase the number of debuff slots, yes, and we most likely will. Unfortunately, this is very complicated to do tech wise. It greatly increases the amount of bandwidth for the server, for example, and also for the client (you). When designing new talents, we try very hard to not add more debuff slots, though with the addition of a brand new class it's sort of unavoidable. In a nutshell, yes we realize the debuff slot stuff is an issue now and will be in the future and we're working on it.

Mages Warlock DPS (src)

Warlocks got to crazy land with the % modifiers to their damage output (specifically with Demonic Sacrafice), that's been toned down. Warlocks should never be able to out DPS a Mage with no pet out. Alike a Hunter, their pet should factor into their total damage output. Warlocks that sacrifice pretty much all utility talents should come very close to Mage DPS, but those who invest in group/raid utility should be lower.

Retroactive Dungeon Raid Achievements

Ok, for everything 25-person and above, we added the full loot table checks on BoP items: Gruul, Mag, Vashj, Kae, Illidan, Archimonde, Kil'Jaeden, Onyxia, Ragnaros, Nefarian, C'Thun. Dungeon bosses and anything that requires less than 25 people will check any quests but no items.We can not check the Heroic Daily Quests or Dungeon Daily Quests as they are repeatable and not tracked accurately by our system. (src)
Also, you have to have the items in your inventory or bank. If you deleted them you will not get credit and the GM's will not restore items for achievements. (src)

Tier items bought from BoP tokens are counted. You will get the achievements. (src)
The Quel'Serrar quest counts for Onyxia. You don't even need the sword. The quest is good enough. (src)

No Food/Water vendors in Zul'Drak (src)

This is an issue that should be resolved in our next content update. The Innkeepers should be offering food and drink as normal once the update takes place.

Music of Warcraft (src)
We use as much live orchestra as we can as well as a live choir. Some of the recordings have even been done in places such as a church in order to get just the right sound.

Druid
Lifebloom changes - part 2 (src)

Whenever we change abilities we always consider the outcomes for all aspects of the game, very rarely will we change an ability that will reduce it's effectiveness in PvE or PvP for the sake of the other. And if we do, it's intended.

In the case of Lifebloom, it's too good in both aspects of the game. Again, it's not our intention to merely just reduce the effectiveness of Lifebloom, but to also introduce new healing mechanics (Flourish, Nourish, talents like Living Seed and the improvements to Tree of Life) to compensate.

HoTs are intended to be effective in HPS and efficient, but have the drawback of requiring time to heal. The issue today is that you'll HoT a player who got hit by a big AOE, and some other class will use a downrank direct heal and cause you HoT to be ineffective. This is being addressed through downrank penalties. We want other classes to say "Hey, I could heal that guy back up who just got hit by that AOE, but I'll let the Druid do it instead and preserve my mana." Note that I'm not saying random AOE damage is not what HoTs are only intended to be for, I'm just using that as an example.

Mage

Fingers of Frost - We'll be addressing this by allowing it to work on your next 2 or so spells, instead of just one. (src)

Priest

Empowered Healing - Empowered Healing wasn't intended to have been buffed or nerfed, just be converted over to the new spell power system. We still have yet to do a big pass over all the talents that work similarly in other classes. Sounds to me the change to Empowered Healing wasn't done correctly, it will get fixed. (src)
Serendipity - Serendipity is fixed in the next build. (src)

New Penance ranks - New ranks are also in for the next build. (src)

Inner Fire changes (src)
It will be changed to spell power, so that it's useful to Shadow Priests too. Regarding the charges, they're likely to stay. The spell is dirt cheap because of the charges. If we removed them, we'd have to up the mana cost. A Warrior who keeps his shout up in fights is usually regarded as better than those who don't, similar to a Priest who keeps his Inner Fire up vs those who don't.

Unlikely also that it will be made undispellable, we're not even sure if we like the Mage/Warlock armors being undispellable. The dispel system in general (junk buffs, RNG resists) is something we'd also like to address as a whole.

Warlock

Imp and Destructive Reach - The Destructive Reach talent is now affecting your Imp's casting range. (src)

Death Knight
Frost and PvP (src)
We didn't touch Chilblains yet because we don't want all PvP DKs to have to go deep Frost. We're considering moving it way up in Frost (though the top of Frost is kinda nice as it is) or doing something else entirely.

One change we did make is to let the slow portion of Chains of Ice be a separate debuff that is physical and therefore not-dispellable. That isn't intended to be the single massive change that fixes any potential DK PvP problems, but I did want to mention it.

Improved Icy Touch (src)

Base Icy Touch: 15% debuff
Improved Icy Touch: 1/2/3% more debuff
Icy Talons: 4/8/12/16/20% melee haste
Improved Icy Talons: 20% melee haste for the raid

I know these things change quickly. It will all settle down. :)

Dk talent trees changes and the 4 diseases (src)

There are 4 death knight diseases: Blood Plague, Frost Fever, Crypt Fever / Ebon Plague, and Unholy Blight. At most you can get a 4 disease multiplier on Blood Strike and similar abilities, but the abilities are scaled for that. Blood and Frost do more damage in other ways to make up for Unholy's extra diseases.

I think the new talent calculator did catch us midway through some Unholy revisions. We fixed up Blood first and Frost second just because that's what you see left to right .:) There is a great new Unholy talent with some nice Unholy Blight synergy.

We have only just begun evaluating the raid stacking issues so it would be premature to comment on all of that. Best guess is that Blood, Frost and Unholy will each bring an awesome raid buff or debuff, but no single benefit that is so good that *every* raid needs one of each. The catch is that the same holds true of every tree of every class. Don't assume that every raid has to have Windfury just out of tradition. Don't assume that an Enhancement shaman is mandatory at all. I'll detail more when the process is farther along. :)

I think they had trouble with the last build but hopefully there will be a new one out soon. (src)
--------------------------------------- I mentioned the only 4 diseases that the death knight gets. All those others have gone away. (Sad face.)

The class was too chaotic, we were using too many debuff slots, and Blood Strike was either going to be terrible with few diseases or insane with tons of diseases. A refinement was in order.

So 4.

Improved Corpse Explosion was cut in favor of more interesting talents. The Frostfever rune was replaced with something like the old Frozen Rune Weapon, now called Razorice. Death and Decay has no disease, which actually lets its damage come up higher (and it has a nice threat multiplier too). Don't worry -- Icy Touch and a single Pestilence can disease almost everyone. The whole thing just clicks better now. You only have to worry about keeping up 2 diseases most of the time, since Crypt Fever / Ebon Plague applies automatically. That just leaves Unholy Blight (see below).

The web team that puts up the talent calculators has done awesome in the face of very rapidly changing trees, but some stuff gets caught mid-change. Improved Icy Talons for example is 20% haste -- same as talented Windfury. Abomination's Might is 10% attack power, same as Unleashed Rage.

Unholy Blight counts as a disease while it lasts. It also causes Blood Plague. So in essence it causes two diseases for purposes of things like Blood Strike, Death Strike, Obliterate and Blood Boil that scale off diseases. If you have Crypt Fever or Ebon Plague, that disease appears automatically so you end up with 3 diseases from Unholy Blight. (src)

Dancing Rune Weapon Unholy Blight and Blood Plague (src)
I believe the Dancing Rune Weapon can refresh your Blood Plague, but it can't apply another stack.

I think I answered Unholy Blight in another thread or two, but it is counted as a disease and it applies Blood Plague. So that's two for one spell, three if you have Crypt Fever. A lot of what we wanted to do with the tree overhaul was apply synergy wherever possible. So Unholy Blight is a great lead-in for Blood Boil, and it works well with Death and Decay (here, cower in my Blight) or the new talent which does something similar (but in a very cool way, at least once we get real art).

BlizzCon 2008 Website Launched

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

We just released the official BlizzCon 2008 website. You can now find new information about this year's panels, contests, and tournaments, and you can also learn more about DIRECTV's special BlizzCon promotion. Make sure to check back regularly as the site will be updated with new event information such as event schedules, floor plans, store info, and much, much more.

EU - Blizzard Authenticators will soon be available

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

Due to the high demand for the Blizzard Authenticators, they are currently sold out in the Online Store. We expect to get new stock in mid August, and will restock regularly as demand for the Authenticators continues. Thank you for your patience.

WoW TCG Giveaway: Bananas Pet!

Kody — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:17:56 GMT

Along with our Wrath of the Lich King Beta Key Giveaway, we have another special treat for AddOn authors. Blizzard has provided us with codes to give away 10 Banana Charms. Normally you must obtain this unique item from Upper Deck Entertainment's World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, but this contest is yet another chance for you to get your hands on one, to start sporting your very own "Bananas" in-game!

The contest will run from Monday, July 21st, 2008 to Monday, August 11th, 2008 and entering is easy; here's a quick overview of the rules:

Register here on Curse.com if you haven't yet, to become a member of the Curse Network. This will allow you to login to many of the websites listed here with a single account.
- You must register with a valid email address; we will notify you if you're one of the 10 winners via the email address used to create your account.
Upload your AddOn to CurseForge.com. If your AddOn is already on CurseForge, then don't worry -- you're automatically entered!
- If there are multiple members on a winning project, the code will go to the "Project Lead" and they can choose whether to use it or give it to another member of the team.
Only one code will be rewarded to any author or project lead. Multiple AddOn Projects does not qualify a single person to multiple codes.
Curse, Inc. employees are not eligible for entry into the contest.

Death Knight Abilities From WWI '08

Kody — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:50:13 GMT

Following up on Saturday's First Impressions article, we have more details on Death Knight abilities for you, direct from the Worldwide Invitational where Wrath of the Lich King was playable. Note that the mechanics of these abilities are still being balanced, so it's possible that many of them will change prior to release, or even beta.

I decided to fill my role as an explorer of the fine world of Azeroth and ran around Eastern Plaguelands. At Light's Hope Chapel I came upon a Death Knight trainer, and of course I had to check out all of the abilities the class gets. While I didn't have time to check everything and get exact details, I did memorize the gist of many of the abilities. Check them out below! We also weren't allowed to film or take pictures of the screens, so sadly I don't have direct tooltip examples.

Death Knight Abilities

These are not all of the abilities; it's the ones I noticed you receive fairly early on in your leveling. It's also possible more will be added for these levels, or some of these may be removed before the expansion launches.

Chains of Ice -- Roots the target in place, and once the target breaks free of the root, a movement speed snare is applied for the next 10 seconds. The potency of the snare weakens every second. 20 second cooldown.
Raise Dead -- Raises the target corpse to fight by your side as a ghoul. If the target corpse is not humanoid, you need "Corpse Dust" to complete the spell. 5 minute cooldown.
- In the Unholy tree you can find talents that improve the damage done by your ghoul, as well as those that reduce the cooldown on Raise Dead and also increase the duration your ghoul stays out.
Frost Presence -- Increases armor by 45% and threat generated by 25%.
Mind Freeze -- 4 second interupt, also deals frost damage, but costs Runic Power. 10 second cooldown.
Blood Boil -- This ability seems to work like the Warrior's Challenging Shout ability based on the tooltip information. It causes all of the diseases on targets within the range of the AE to "erupt," dealing damage and forcing them to attack you.
Death Strike -- Deals 60% weapon damage and if the target dies within 6 seconds and rewards Experience or Honor it heals the Death Knight.
Strangulate -- Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells.
Death and Decay -- This is a ground targeted AoE from the description. It deals damage every second to any enemies in it and has a chance to fear them.
Obliterate -- This ability deals weapon damage plus a flat amount per disease on your target, but removes them.
- Note: I noticed a talent that gives a fairly substantial chance to not remove the diseases when using Obliterate.
Pestilence -- This spreads the disease from your target to nearby targets, dealing damage and inflicting any targets hit with the diseases being spread. Seems like a cleave ability.
Degeneration -- This ability deals damage and places a stacking disease on the target. Tooltip says it stacks up to 3 times. Seems like a good ability to use along with Plague Strike to boost Obliterate's damage. Unknown if multiple stacks causes Obliterate to do additional damage, but doubtful.
- Note: This ability will also corrupt Healing Over Time spells on the target, causing the Damage Over Time portion of it to deal additional damage. Unfortunately I didn't have access to dueling a Priest or Druid to find out how potent it becomes, but it definitely seems like an anti-Druid ability for Arenas.

After playing around for a bit with the base abilities I came to the conclusion that the Death Knight will no doubt be one of the most challenging classes to play in World of Warcraft, with learning Rune management and how to properly allocate Runic Power into your various abilities that use it both being very important to the success of the character. You'll also likely never reach a point where you have nothing to do -- you simply have too many abilities to use and your Rune cooldowns are only 10 seconds each; you have two of each type on Rune on your sword -- but there's no word on whether being able to change them will actually go in -- it was mentioned back at BlizzCon.

Something else I noticed that ensures you'll never have one of those frustrations where your Plague Strike gets dodged and you're stuck waiting 10 seconds before you can actually do damage; your Rune cooldowns refresh instantly if your ability misses, is dodged, or is parried (only the Runes used on that ability). This didn't seem to hold true for "spells" like Icy Touch, though, as mine missed a few times while playing and it didn't refresh the Rune. Bug, perhaps? Or maybe it's only intended to function that way on the melee abilities... who knows.

Regardless, the Death Knight is going to be a very fun class to play if it goes live anywhere similar to the current state it's in; Blizzard has definitely done a great job of creating a hybrid tank/dps class that does its job as well as the others do, but in a different way. I definitely suggest everyone buying the expansion check it out -- though not right away -- I want to get mine to 80 as soon as possible! Once I've collected my thoughts on the talent trees for the Death Knight in general, I'm going to be writing another article concerning the trees and the Death Knight's potential impact on the PVP game -- especially in Arenas.

PVP Panel Information

Kody — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:57:49 GMT

A lot of exciting information was shared during the PVP panel earlier today at the Worldwide Invitational, including details on Lake Wintergrasp -- the first non-instanced zone dedicated fully to PVP, as well as the new battleground and arenas which will be available when Wrath of the Lich King ships. Below is a recap of the information discussed during the panel, as well as a Q&A session to close it out.

Wintergrasp

First outdoor world zone entirely dedicated to PVP
Only a few PVE elements
No control for number of opposing forces, only statistics help designing. Supports large and small scale combat
Siege Weapons on ground and in air
Destructable buildings
Taking control of Wintergraps gives an Spirit Shard-like loot for every boss in Northrend
Rewards will be unique version of other items
Honor and "Marks of Honor"
A river is also added, that ground siege weapons can't cross.
There are bridges, which are destructable of course. The bridges are wide and tall.
Graveyards are capturable and help as the offense advances
The goal is to capture a huge keep. Every wall of the keep is also destructable
The walls have stationary cannons to defend against siege weapons
Players can tell what percentage of the destructable elements are destroyed

Siege Weapons

The Demolisher: baseline vehicle. Support short and long range attack type and ram attack. Bombard players and buildings. Houses the driver who fires the weapons. Also houses 3 exposed players who can fight with their own spells as if they were standing still.
Forsaken Catapult: faster than the Demolisher. More agile than the rest of the siege weapons. Shorter range, but still longer than player combat range. Lower damage, flame breath attack at the front. 2 additional passanger. Costs less supplies at the siege warshop than other siege weapons.
Siege Engine: hardest hitting, longest range ground vehicle. Driver controlls the ram attack, independent gunner in the turret that can turn around fires the main weapons. Additional passengers are protected.
Fighter: very fast air vehichle, used for transportation, vulnerable against anti-air weapons.
Bomber: fast air vehicle. Carries a pilot and a gunner who controls the bombs.
Goblin Shredder: counter-air unit, long-range ground-to-air rockets against fighters and bombers. Also works as a personal armor suit, once the vehicle is destroyed the player can continue fighting on its own. Strong melee attack with its shredders. Ability to jump high to destroy incoming rockets and jump over walls. Vulnerable against ground siege weapons

Arenas

Keep the new ones simple but still innovate
Moving objects in the arena - dynamic LOS. Can be timed, can be set random. Helps focusing on player skill.
Unique starting areas, that might be very close to each other
2 new arenas, one in Dalaran, one in Orgrimmar

Dalaran Arena

Based on the new lore of the city
Arena map is located in the sewers of the flying capital city of Northrend
No mounts allowed
Similarly sized as the Blade's Edge arena
The dynamic element is a pipe, a wall of water flows out of it sometimes, that is a complete LOS block
Only a few ramps to the center area, player-height ledge on the sides
Water shoots players out of the starting area, players can't stay or return there

Orgrimmar Arena

New area in the old world
Dynamic objects that do damage to players (spikes)
Moving pillars on timers, players will see a wheel spin up before that happens
Extremely close starting areas - elevators bring players up to the center of the arena, only 10 yards away from each others, the spikes drop and the fight begins
Mounts are allowed
Bigger than Dalaran Arena
Orcs like watching fights, so there are NPCs on the edges who make noise too!
Players can stand on the pillars that sometimes move up. Still vulnerable to ranged damage there
When the pillars go up, the spikes come out of the ground so the player has to decide what to do. Take the damage when moving across the area? Stay separated from the group?
No other LOS objects
Players have a couple of seconds to check out the opponents before the spikes go down and the fight starts

Battleground

Located on an island off Dragonblight, which was a Titan testing area
The zone has an attack-defend game type: when the event goes active one side attacks, the other defends. Once the time has run out, the winner faction gets control of the resources. If the attack fails the offense gets a resource advantage to help on the next wave.
Destructable walls and buildings
Siege weapons and warshops
Attackers start on 2 steam battleships in the water and play to reach the top of the valley
Defenders start on the beach close to the dock and play to defend the capture points at the top
3 sections of destructable walls in the valley
Behind the walls there are siege warshops, the controlling side can use it.
10vs10 or 15vs15, not decided yet
Similarly sized as the rest of the battlegrounds

Q&A

Some players lose battlegrounds on purpose to get marks faster.
They are tuning the winning and losing rewards to solve this, they are also using the Report feature for this.

Spectator mode in Arenas?
Still on the list, but some players don't want to be spectated so it's a complex issue. They are also thinking about spectating raids as well

City raids make servers crash. What's going to happen in Wintergraps?
They are working on the technical side. If there are many players, you might see less into the distance to help computer and server performance. The objectives are also spaced apart so players don't cramp up.

Will BG and Arena rewards be freed from each other?
The PVP loot structure will remain the same. Arena will give 5 slots and the weapons, honor will give the rest.

Some class' CC abilities are better for PVP, others for PVE.
They don't see that as a problem. They are trying to balance them.

Any change for Warlock pet resilience and AOE damage scaling?
They are happy with the pet scaling right now.

Faction imbalance in Battlegrounds?
It's the result of being able to queue for more battlegrounds, and the starting time is the same as the popup question timeout. They are going to be changes to fix this.

Dungeons & Raids Panel Information

Kody — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:03:19 GMT

csulok over at World of Raids has a great recap of the Dungeon & Raids Panel that just took place at the Worldwide Invitational. There was some exciting information shared, such as no attunement/faction requirements for Heroic dungeons, a heavy focus on introducing PVP rewards through PVE as well as the PVP system -- though these rewards will not be as good as you'll find via the top-end PVP spectrum -- and many other details. Read on for the full recap of the panel.

What's new in WotLK?

10/25 player raids for every single raid zone.
heroics will be featured in WotLK
more non-linear content, more than 1 way to get to a boss and defeat it (example: Occulus)
Spirit Shard reward system for every dungeon connected to Wintergrasp. Whoever controls Wintergrap will add all unique items and enchantments to all dungeon and raid bosses for the controlling faction
8 level-up dungeons
4 max level dungeons meaning 12 heroic dungeons altogether
3 Tier7 raid instances
separate loot by a full Tier between a 10 and 25 man raid
more loot in 25 man raids, because there are more players
more accessible heroic dungeons, wider variety of setups will be successful in them
1 hour dungeon experiences
better quests, not only kill the boss, kill 10 creatures.
Gun'drak - 80 dungeon in Zul'drak. Accumulation of a large questline that encompasses the entire zone. Feel more connected to the story, understand why stuff happened
Arthas will be kept as the last boss, like Kil'jaeden, won't be patched in earlier

PvP gear from the PvE system. Won't be the best loot, but it gives access and an early starting gear
Items that work for more classes. Remove unnecessary stats from classes that keep loot separated. Merge stats so that items work with at least 3 classes
faction shouldn't feel like a grind. Championing: equipping a tabard for the faction rewards you reputation when in any dungeon
remove faction requirement from heroic dungeons
Death Knight isn't intended to replace any class

Occulus

Level 80 dungeon in Coldarra. First dungeon where you can fly inside. Players get a drake, mount it and fight with individual spells. Some drakes heal, some tank, some damage!
Series of flying rings, you can choose what order you defeat the mobs on the rings

Ulduar

2 dungeons and 1 raid in Storm Peaks
Halls of Stone: level 77 dungeon. Closely tied with Titan lore. Has Iron Dwarfs!
Halls of Lightning next to it, level 80 dungeon.
There's a raid wing in Ulduar as well
Continues the Uldaman platinum disc quest line with the the history and creation of Azeroth

Caverns of Time - Culling of Stratholme

built because of player feedback
level 80 dungeon, fully scripted
fighting alongside Arthas before he was corrupted by the Lich King
timed encounters, non-linear paths on the streets of Stratholme
same voice talents for Jaine, Uther, Arthas as in Warcraft 3!
Infinite Dragonflight will cause troubles here as well
players will start outside the city in the forest when they enter the dungeon

Q&A

How will legendary drops work in WotLK?
They prefer like how Atiesh worked, but time restrictions may interfere.

Will there be attunements in WotLK or only gearchecks
No attunements on initial level 80 content (including Naxxramas), level-up dungeons, or Heroics.

Death Knight First Impressions

Kody — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:26:02 GMT

While Diablo III being announced is the big news of day one here at Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational, there's also this little expansion for World of Warcraft -- called Wrath of the Lich King -- which they're letting players dive into with either premade level 70s, or the Death Knight class at level 55.

Yep, for the first time anywhere outside of internal testing and the Alpha, the Death Knight is playable -- and by 8,000 people, no less.

Keep in mind the information I'm about to share is from the "latest build of Lich King," which is very much Alpha currently, so things can and more than likely will change -- possibly dramatically -- before the public sees the class and the expansion as a whole again.

Pretty much all of the information we shared with you in early May still rings true. There are subtle changes here and there, but the abilities talked about still work the same ways, the Death Knight still starts at level 55, and the class still uses a hybrid Runic Power / Runes system for using abilities; it's very much like a hybrid rogue/warrior/mage at this point, with certain talent specs massively enhancing spell-based damage, while others boost physical-based damage.

One change Blizzard made early in June is very evident though; each talent tree is definitely geared toward both being able to tank, and being able to deal damage. Each tree has its own flavor for doing both, but regardless of spec, you'll more than likely be a potent tank, as well as damage-dealer. Granted, there are some talents that synergize amazingly well with a bit of a mixed spec, but that's all the more reason to love this new class; the theorycrafting revolving around it will make other classes pale in comparison.

At any rate, enough of the random babbling; you really care about the juicy details, right? Something more than you've heard before? Good, because we have some cool stuff to share.

So you start at level 55, you're gung-ho and ready to own up some Plaguehounds and Carrion Grubs -- at least for now since Ebon Hold is currently still not available in Alpha; it's where Death Knights will eventually begin their life in Azeroth before moving on to Eastern Plaguelands and ultimately Outland/Northrend. But wait... what's this? Your talent trees are completely devoid of points spent, and you have no points to spend. Ouch... well that's easy enough, you simply partake in a quest to receive your talent points and you're good to go; you receive the number of points a level 55 should have, and can spend them however you like.

Your core abilities you begin the game with a pretty nifty; not only do you start off with Blood Presence, but you also get Death Grip, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Icy Touch, Summon Deathcharger (which looks insanely cool), Death Gate (15 minute cooldown teleport to Ebon Hold), and Death Coil -- your first Runic Power ability.

Quick Info -- Starting Spells

Blood Presence -- Increases your damage by 15% and heals you for 4% of the damage caused.
Plague Strike -- Deals weapon damage and diseases the target, causing Shadow damage over time. Costs 1 Blood and 1 Unholy rune to activate.
Blood Strike -- Deals 60% weapon damage and additional damage for each of your diseases affecting the target. Costs 1 Blood run to activate.
Icy Touch -- Deals moderate Frost damage (somewhere around 213-235, modified by Attack Power -- yes this is a spell modified by Attack Power; Paladin love incoming, perhaps?), and slows the target's melee, casting, and ranged attack speeds by 15%. Costs 1 Frost rune to activate; 6 second cooldown.
Death Grip -- Pulls the target toward you, forcing them to attack you for 3 seconds. Yes, this ability literally pulls the target to you if they're in range. Costs 1 Unholy rune to activate; 35 second cooldown; 30 yard range.
Death Coil -- Unleashes Runic Power to deal Shadow damage to a non-Undead enemy or heals an Undead friendly target for that amount of damage. This looks to either be a direct damage spell, or a pet heal for your ghoul, depending on how you choose to use it.

There are a few talents I noticed right away that struck me as must-have talents while leveling up. First off in the Frost tree is Improved Icy Touch; it reduces the cooldown on Icy Touch by one second per point (one of the few Rune-based abilities with a cooldown) and unlocks a talent called Icy Talons that causes Icy Touch to also grant you a buff when used, increasing your attack speed by 15% for 20 seconds. Can I hear a "yes, please?" Then there's Killing Machine, a talent that gives your next Icy Touch, Mind Freeze, or Howling Blast a 100% chance to crit after you score a critical strike via melee damage. Again, huge synergy with talents in the other trees, such as the Blood talent that increases critical strike chance.

In the Blood tree you'll find a plethora of grinding-friendly talents and generally cool stuff, like Bladed Armor -- a talent that at the maximum of 5 points -- grants you 25 Attack Power for every 1,000 Armor you have. Then there's Vendetta, which heals you for 4% of your life every time you kill a target that rewards Experience or Honor; it also unlocks a talent called Mark of Blood, which heals your group for 4% of the heal's value any time the enemy target it's affecting is healed, and when the target affected dies, your group is healed for 10% of your health if they reward Experience or Honor.

Unholy seems heavily focused on your ghoul and other pets you create, like the Army of Dead and Gargoyle. Yep, if you spend points deep enough in the tree, you can learn to summon a Gargoyle to aid you; it costs Runic Power to keep up, but can dish out a nice amount of additional damage. There is also a talent called Necrosis, which allows your melee attacks to also deal additional Shadow damage. It doesn't seem very strong for the point costs currently, but again, this is Alpha so it will probably change before we see it live.

The class is fairly entertaining once you get your talent points -- it definitely starts off as a powerful class -- almost to the point of feeling overpowered initially. But that's a good thing; this is a hero class after all, and you're also starting out at 55 in a game where it's a race to 80, so getting into Outland a bit quicker is a good thing in my book. Sadly my time was up shortly after getting started on my quest to level 56; someone else was asking to use the PC and like the nice guy I am, I let him. Don't worry though -- I plan to go back again before the weekend is over and get more details on the Death Knight -- so be sure to come back soon!

Blizzard Authenticator Offers Enhanced Security for WoW

Zyuu — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:22:01 GMT

Blizzard just posted a press release where they share information about a new keychain token which generates unique codes used to help prevent unauthorized World of Warcraft account access.

This is pretty cool and having an extra layer of security will definitely reduce the chances of getting hacked, by a lot. To access my Internet bank, I use something similar and its very safe and easy to use.

Designed to attach to a keychain, the lightweight and waterproof Blizzard® Authenticator is an electronic device that generates a six-digit security code at the press of a button. This code is unique, valid only once, and active for a limited time; it must be provided along with the account name and password when signing in to the World of Warcraft account linked to it.

This optional security measure will be available for a cost of €6.00 at the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational, which takes place June 28-29 in Paris, France. In addition, the Blizzard Authenticator will be made available for purchase via Blizzard Entertainment’s European websites in the near future for a cost of €6.00 plus shipping.

“It’s important to us that World of Warcraft offers a safe and enjoyable game environment,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “One aspect of that is helping players avoid account compromise, so we’re pleased to make this additional layer of security available to them.”

Learn more about the Blizzard Authenticator

Don't forget to check out our coverage and speculation surrounding the new game Blizzard will announce at the World Wide Invitational:

Working for Blizzard Europe

Zyuu — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:49:39 GMT

Ever thought of applying for one of the positions that Blizzard has listed on their jobs page? You're probably far from alone. I'd actually go as far as saying that most people playing World of Warcraft have at one point given it a thought. “Working for the company that created our favorite game World of Warcraft? Sign me up!” Or, “I can give customer support myself, instead of having to deal with these GMs that refuse to help me out, I would definitely help out right away.”

Having talked to a friend that works at Blizzard Entertainment in Europe and using a thread from 2007 by another Blizzard employee as a reference, there are many things that have to be understood and taken into consideration if you want to work for Blizzard. In this article I will cover working at Blizzard's European offices in France.

For example, one of the biggest “issues” to work for Blizzard would be to relocate to France – unless you already live there. This is a huge step for most people: leaving everyone behind, a new country, a different culture and the French language. There's also the fact of not knowing anyone and getting used to your new job which is in France, rather than your home country. Let's say you make up your mind and decide to apply for a position; which position do you want? Do you have an education or previous experience in the field you want to work within, or do you want to start out with an entry position, most likely working as a Game Master or Customer Support? Well, many apply for GM and CS jobs and assume they can quickly get internal positions that open up, but according to what I hear, this is harder than it seems…

…Harder because the competition is fierce, due to the amount of people working as Game Masters and Customer Support Representatives. Since said jobs are entry-level positions, they are easiest to get and thus there will be the most occupied positions. You should preferably be a unique snowflake and stick out from the crowd to get the internal position you've applied for; this can be easier said than done, but never give up – after all, raising among internal positions is a great thing when you finally can pull it off.

Now, going back to what it takes when you actually decide to apply for a position… well, let's say you decide to apply for a Game Master position – it's probably not too difficult to get the job in question, but due to it being an entry position, it won't pay super well – however, it should be sufficient to have spare money and carry on a social life in France. I've been to France many times; it's a nice country to socialize in. This is almost overkill to go into, but with the culture shock, the different language and the fact that French people are proud and prefer to speak French, it will be challenging.

About a year ago Tharfor of Blizzard Europe made a couple of posts where he outlined what it's like to work for Blizzard in France and how it was to relocate and the general experience he’s had from it. Overall he enjoys it quite a bit and never expected to stay so long – so it does indeed sound promising. However, if it's a GM position you seek, you will have to work shifts and be flexible; it's not always a walk in the park, but the experience you get from working at Blizzard and actually giving true support live within the product itself (quite the feat if compared to normal phone support) is a great thing. Picture yourself working like that in another country. Is it something for you? For me personally, I've had thoughts on applying for jobs in different countries like that. One of them was Blizzard Entertainment in France, but the relocation part and barely knowing anyone would make it hard and challenging.

Basically, you need to go for it 100% or it will be noticed that you don't and you probably wouldn't do well enough even IF you ended up somehow convincing them via the phone interview and later the live interview that you're the person for the job. Remember that. Working within the game industry is certainly different and all in all the chances are endless, it just depends what you make out of it. In the end, though, it's all about what you want. While Blizzard is a great company and there are many great people working there, it's still your own choice.

See it as a lifetime experience; we all have different goals and views in life, so what's yours? Would you relocate to another country if you got the chance to work for Blizzard Entertainment? You can make new friends and get used to the new country – it will just take time.

Daily Posts from Blizzard (22/05)

Zyuu — Sat, 24 May 2008 03:26:24 GMT

5 person dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King

We are currently planning to keep the 5 person dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King fairly short in length, but with a boost to their overall epicness - the preview we have of The Nexus is a great example of this.

The more vast and sprawling dungeons will be found in the raid dungeons which more players will be able to experience with the changes to the setup.

[Source]

Death Knight creation

This is correct, if a server is not yet open to transfers, then you need a level 55 on that server to create a Death Knight . At this point in time, we don't have any further limitations on the creation. As always, I like to give a caveat that this could change if we feel it's necessary.

[Source]

The boat and zeppelin crews are still not back

There were issues with the boat and zeppelin crews that were adversely affecting their functionality. While we'd like to add them back in at some point in time, it won't happen until we feel that issue will no longer affect their functionality. We'd like to see the crews back at their stations though in the future if we can.

[Source]

About Arena Exploits

We're keeping an eye on the new queue mechanics for exploits, but there is some critical information missing from this example. If the two players in question had not been exploiting, what rating would they be capable of maintaining? The Elo system doesn't actually rely on same-rating matchups to work, meaning if you're only skilled enough to maintain a 1800 rating, but you play 1600 rated opponents all day and night, you'll still hang around the 1800 rating mark regardless.

So, in the example, the exploit should only work if the players in question were 1850 quality players anyways, in which case their exploit didn't actually change their chances to get 1850 (or reduce on average the number of games they'd have to play to get there), it only changed who they played against to get there.

The exploit would only work if you were able to consistently play against opponents that were actually worse than their rating said they were. So, for example, if players at 1500 rating on average were actually worse than 1500, than it might work. However, if anything I think players feel that playing 1500 rated matchups is just as likely (if not more likely), to put you up against a team that is actually much better than 1500, in which case this exploit is hurting your chances more than helping. This only becomes more true the more players attempt to use this tactic (since more high-rated players would actually be queuing at lower ratings).

[Source]

Arena Tournament First Qualification Round Concludes

After several weeks of fierce competition, the 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament's first qualification round has come to an end. Registration for the second qualification round is now open, and you can check out the phase schedule for it. To register for the tournament or for more information, please visit our Arena Tournament information page. Thank you to all of the participants and good luck to everyone in the second qualifier!

[Source]

US - Forum Reorganization

Thanks everyone for your patience as we shifted things around a bit. Just a quick run-down of changes we made:

Aside from the "crucial" forums such as Customer Service and Tech Support, everything that isn't in a sub-category has been alphabetized. "Non-critical" forums such as SCII and WotLK forums are left at the bottom.

The Guild Recruitment forum has been split into an Alliance and Horde variation, I would fully expect traffic to increase substantially for a bit while people rush to get their ads up, but it should slow back down after a while.

There's a new "Gameplay Discussion" subsection which now houses the Dungeon & Raid, PvP, Professions, and Quest forums. Possibilities exist for other forums to be added to this subsection in the future, but for now we think its pretty solid.

The drop down menu (the thing in the upper left of every forum) reflects all of these changes, and should hopefully provide a clearer and more logical separation.

In addition, the "WoW" prefix has been removed from all forums as everyone should already be aware they're looking through forums related to World of Warcraft.

[Source]

22/05 The New and Improved Gadgetzan Times

While the opening of the Dark Portal and the scandalous return of Kael’thas to the Sunwell Plateau might have been good for adventurers all over Azeroth, they haven’t been good for the goblins at the Gadgetzan Times. Known for their interest in all things explosive, there has been a significant shortage of reliable, sensible goblins to report on the events and news for this illustrious newspaper. When crisis looms, goblins get creative, and when the first ‘all-purpose automated author’ self-destructed, there was only one solution - call in the experts.

We are proud to present the new and improved Gadgetzan Times, containing fan fiction written about the World of Warcraft by the people who know it intimately – the players. Featuring a selection of stories in different languages, it’s the perfect place to share your stories with the world. You can find out how to submit your own story to the editors here. The Gadgetzan Times – now with 100% more adventurer!

[Source]

21/05 WWI Costume Contest Announced!

Along with our Machinima and Fan Art contests, we are holding a Worldwide Invitational Costume contest! To enter, simply send us a picture of your costume beforehand and come to the Worldwide Invitational to be judged! You need to own a Worldwide Invitational ticket to enter the competition. You can read more information and guidelines here!

We will be announcing more details for the Worldwide Invitational dance contest during the next few days, so make sure to check back soon!

[Source]

Professional Warcraft III players to carry Olympic torc

chbimun — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:02:43 GMT

All political controversy aside, bearing the Olympic torch during its long route to the Games is an incredible honor, and this year two professional gamers will take part in the international relay. Through a sponsorship deal with peripheral manufacturer Razer, XiaoFeng "Sky" Li and Jae ho "Moon" Jang will both bear the torch as it passes through China en route to the Beijing National Stadium.

Both Sky and Moon are professional Warcraft III players, with the former being recognized as the world's best Human-class player, and the latter as the one of the world's best Night Elf-class players. Both were chosen by Razer from a group of ten professional gamers, selected by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games. Congrats go out to both.

Two interviews with Blizzard and Epic Gems Info

Zyuu — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:52:21 GMT

The Blizzard insider recently interviewed World of Warcraft lead producer J. Allen Brack and art director Chris Robinson about The Burning Crusade, the most current patch Fury of the Sunwell and what the future has in store with Wrath of the Lich King.

Insider:Do you see a lot of parallels between Naxxramas and Sunwell Plateau?

J. Allen Brack: I see Sunwell Plateau more as an evolution of what we did with Naxxramas. Like I said, Sunwell Plateau serves a dual purpose of concluding The Burning Crusade’s story as well as representing the ultimate challenge for PvE content. In that regard, you could say it’s the Naxxramas of The Burning Crusade. But there are also some noticeable differences reflecting what the team learned from developing Naxxramas: Sunwell Plateau definitely has a more focused layout than the massive expanse of Naxxramas. Naxx’s immense size was one of its defining characteristics, and that was not a bad thing in itself. It allowed us to populate the necropolis with some of the game’s most memorable raid bosses, but at the same time I think its size made it difficult for some players to fully experience the dungeon. Sunwell Plateau’s smaller scale will let more players access the raid and give them a reasonable chance of clearing it before the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.

In addition, we consider Magisters’ Terrace to be an integral part of the complete Sunwell package -- a small group experience that, along with the slew of new daily quests, new badge rewards, and new crafted items, shows our continued commitment to providing meaningful, rewarding solo and small group content.

Insider: Speaking of Wrath of the Lich King -- How is Northrend progressing? What are your feelings about going from the world style of Outland to the very different Northrend setting?

Chris Robinson: Coming up with the high concept look of The Burning Crusade was a great experience, and as a team we really enjoyed working in this style. For a designer, it’s always a breath of fresh air to have some new elements to play with. So naturally it’s great to now have this opportunity to go back to the more traditional elements of fantasy that comprise the look and feel of Wrath of the Lich King, even though this poses new challenges in and of itself. Northrend has a very Nordic, gothic fantasy feel that’s a departure from the wild scenescapes of Outland.

One way we’re attempting to reflect these new visual themes is by making sure all the item rewards of Northrend faithfully embody the new style. From the get-go, players will earn trophies of war that are very “Northrendy” -- for example, say, a two-handed axe that’s made of a dragon jaw, covered with spikes, leather, and other traditional materials. We want players to see the new gear and think, “Yeah, that guy’s been to Northrend.”

Check out the full Blizzard Insider Interview here!

WoW Arena Tournament interview with Blizzard's Lead Designer Tom Chilton and Joong Kim

GameSpy: The World of Warcraft Arena Tournament has been a great excuse for us to transform the WoW players on staff from emoting clickers into full-fledged PvPers. It's been a difficult transition to say the least. It's a whole new game for us. So let's talk about the Arena Tournament, and what it means for World of Warcraft.

Tom Chilton, Lead Designer: The big objective is to build WoW into a viable eSports game platform. We feel like with the introduction of the arena team and the arena system, we've got a way to set ourselves up for competitive eSports. We've been pretty happy with how the system has been turning out, it's a very popular system within WoW. It's fostered a strong sense of competition and community within that. It's turned out as a real sub-game within the game.

GameSpy: Why eSports and why now?

Tom Chilton: Before this, we didn't really have a good forum for competitive eSports. WoW PvP was just kind of there. For example, our battlegrounds always had the limitations of the Horde having to play against Alliance, it was very themed toward the conflict within the game itself. So it didn't lend itself all that well to an eSports kind of setup. It works with arenas, and we feel like arenas can break through that.

Full interview is available at Gamespy here.

Epic Gems down to 10 Badges (Armory data)

Once your realm reaches Phase 4, Shaani the "Jewelcrafting Supplies" vendor will spawn, however she won't sell epic gems until the Alchemy Lab is completed. Back on the PTRs you could buy these gems for 15 Badges of Justice, but a new price of 10 Badges appeared on the armory

11 innovation lessons from creators of WoW

Zyuu — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:32:43 GMT

The blog Inside Innovation and O.C. Register have published an article that cover eleven innovative lessons from the creators of World of Warcraft -- Blizzard. If you have some sparetime, this article is definitely worth checking out.

Blizzard Entertainment, the envy of the computer game industry, has learned 11 lessons on innovation that can help almost any business.

Irvine-based Blizzard used these innovation methods not only to create the world’s most popular massively multi-player online game, World of Warcraft, but also to keep the game fresh and challenging for more than 10 million players.

Because many of those customers pay $15 a month to continue playing, Blizzard’s ongoing creative achievement is worth more than $1 billion a year in revenues, not counting the multi-millions it tallies from its other games, such as StarCraft, Diablo II and Warcraft III, plus trading cards, comic books, etc.

This combination of creativity and profitability is much of the reason for the upcoming merger of game company Activision with Blizzard’s parent company, Vivendi Games. The new company, to be called Activision Blizzard, will be valued at about $18.9 billion.

The following lineup of innovation lessons emerged from a video game conference, an interview, and several experts’ comments.

Blizzard executives discussed the company’s innovation processes during the D.I.C.E. video game conference last month in Las Vegas. Then, in early March, World of Warcraft lead producer J. Allen Brack explained his teams’ work methods during an interview at Blizzard’s new headquarters in Irvine. I also invited several business and innovation experts in Orange County to comment on how Blizzard works and how it and other creative enterprises such as the Walt Disney Co. innovate to keep their customers interested.

Find out what the 11 innovative lessons really are and read the full article here!

Blizzard Says WoW Bot Creator Earned $2.8 Million

Zyuu — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:47:51 GMT

Blizzard is suing the makers behind MMO Glider, the popular World of Warcraft bot that automates gameplay for you.

Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such as fighting is being sued.

Both sides have submitted legal summaries to a court in Arizona.

Blizzard says Glider is a software bot which infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game.

In its legal submission to the court last week, the firm said: "Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time."

'Infringed agreement'

Blizzard argued that Michael Donnelly's tool also infringed the End User License Agreement that all parties have to adhere to when playing the game.

More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold, according to Mr Donnelly. More than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft.

Mr Donnelly said the first time had had been aware of potential legal action over his program was when a lawyer from Vivendi games, which publishes Warcraft, and an "unnamed private investigator" appeared at his home.

In his legal submission, he detailed: "When they arrived, they presented Donnelly with a copy of a complaint that they indicated would be filed the next day in the US District Court for the Central District of California if Donnelly did not immediately agree to stop selling Glider and return all profits that he made from Glider sales."

"Blizzard's audacious threats offended Donnelly," according to the legal papers.

Mr Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no "copy" of the Warcraft game client software is ever made.

Blizzard has said the tool infringes copyright because it copies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by anti-cheat software.

The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgement in the case.

WWI08: Blizzard's Map of Paris

Nevermindz — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:10:19 GMT

Ever wanted to know how the city map of a real-life town would look like when done "à la" World of Warcraft?
Wonder no more! Blizzard did it for Paris, one of the most beautiful cities around the world and host of the future World Wide Invitational 2008!
Moreover, they had some fun while making it: check the facts of each location for more!

Paris : even without a Blizzard convention, it’s worth a visit. To help you enjoy your trip outside the Worldwide Invitational, as well as inside, we created a new World of Warcraft zone – or at least the corresponding map.

Have a look at what monumental places are awaiting you in Paris ... win lots of great memories of a Blizzard themed trip to Paris, France! You will find lots of information about Paris, its shopping areas, hotels, museums, and more, on the website of the Paris Tourism office.

If you need more information concerning the WWI08, check out the official page!

$1 billion investment needed to take on WoW

Zyuu — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:59:59 GMT

The CEO of Activision speaks of how much money it would take to have a chance (note: chance) to overcome World of Warcraft. This is just a chance too. Not even something that is a given.

CEO admits MMOs could be "an insurmountable product category" for publishers.

Speaking at an investor meeting, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has said that he thinks it would take an investment of half a billion to a billion dollars to take on World of Warcraft - and even then, success isn't guaranteed.

"We don't think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it," he said.

Late last year, Activision took a different route, merging with Warcraft owners Vivendi to create Activision Blizzard.

"When we first started looking at it, it appeared to us like a game in an insurmountable product category... EA, Microsoft, Sony and scores of venture capital investments had been put to work unsuccessfully in trying to develop massively multiplayer games as a product opportunity," Kotick said.

"When you... Look at all the money that's already gone to these businesses that have failed, there didn't seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit any time soon in this category."

Kotick also paid tribute to the talent at WOW developers Blizzard. "They have a model that is very well-developed, they have a very keen understanding of their audiences, and they're just scratching the surface of opportunity in a lot of areas... These guys are among the best in the world of game development."

Kotick was speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 Conference on Tuesday this week.