World of Warcraft : fan

New WotLK build soon, Four New Fan Arts

Zyuu — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:36:36 GMT

A brand new Wrath of the Lich King beta build is being deployed and as always stay tuned for the latest news here and over at World of Raids.

We will be taking down the Beta realms at 3:30PM Pacific time today August 13th 2008 to update to the latest build.

We expect this process to take from six to eight hours.

Thank you for your patience!

[Source]

Four New Fan Arts

Latest Fan Art and Comics

Zyuu — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:14:04 GMT

Blizzard has posted several new Fan Art images, including three funny comics.

Notable is how the three fan arts all are of a female night elf. It’s amazing how good some of the artists are; I've seen fan art that is equal to the quality of Blizzard's art themselves.

WoW Image Gallery @ Curse

Three Fan Arts and Russian Alpha Version

Zyuu — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:04:23 GMT

Three new and very cool Fan Arts was recently posted on the Blizzard Fan Art site.

Next week the technical alpha version of the Russian World of Warcraft will begin.

We are delighted to announce the World of Warcraft Russian Technical Alpha, commencing next week.

All our Russian-speaking players are invited to participate in this first phase of testing which focuses only on the technical aspects of the game. We would especially appreciate your reports regarding any connection and latency issues you may experience.

The second phase, the Localization Beta, will begin with patch 2.4.3 and will focus on the localization of World of Warcraft.

To coincide with the release of the Russian Technical Alpha, the Russian forums will also be launched, giving our players a place to discuss the functionality of the game in Russian. A list of known issues will be featured here for the launch of the first phase of testing.

You can read this announcement in Russian here.

The forums will go live next week and we look forward to seeing you there!

Blue Posts, Fan Art and Comic

Zyuu — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:41:08 GMT

Nothing overly exciting on the Blue Post front today. Here goes, though:

Will the level cap be increased beyond 80?

A player explain why he rather not see the level cap to get increased anymore past eighty and Bornakk of Blizzard replies with:

We don't have any details to share beyond Wrath of the Lich King.

That said, before we start to think of things that are way down the road, focus on the present. Why have you spent the "countless hours" gearing up your characters right now? For me it is to feel that I accomplished something with the new character. I enjoy knowing I have multiple characters all leveled up and ready to go if I need them.

As for the leveling part. I used most of my AQ40 items a decent ways into leveling to 70 and they made leveling go quite a bit easier for me which I felt was a great reward. Something to keep in mind is that there was a change in item setup in The Burning Crusade to where you saw a lot more stamina on basically everything.

In Wrath of the Lich King we don't currently plan to rework an entire statistic like that, so instead the items will just get more powerful at a more consistent rate. Of course anything can still change so we'll have to see how things turn out.

[Source]

Personally I'm all for more levels in World of Warcraft. Leveling up is quite fast, so more levels usually also mean more content to experience while leveling up. As long the cap is only increased with each expansion, it shouldn't be a big issue, considering Blizzard tend to take quite... awhile.... to release something as major like an expansion for WoW.

What's your thoughts, dear reader? Should the level cap get increased even more after 80, or should it stay?

Heroic Old World Dungeons

I'm sure there's quite a few of us who'd love to see old world dungeons getting heroic mode added to them, but will it happen? Bornakk tell us the current plans regarding this:

We currently have no plans to implement this. Whether we made them tuned for level 70s or 80s they would be left behind again at some point but don't get me wrong, it's a fun idea, it's just that right now we are focusing on all the dungeons we are adding in Wrath of the Lich King, their regular and heroic versions, along with the dual setup of 10 and 25 person versions for each of the raid dungeons.

[Source]

It's a shame that Blizzard have no plans for the time being to add heroic versions of old school dungeons such as Stratholme, Scholomance and Dire Maul. Even lower level dungeons, such as Maraudon and Dead Mines would be amazingly fun to dungeon crawl through if there were heroic versions. Ah well, let's play the wait game and see what the future has in store.

Updated textures with Wrath of the Lich King?

A player is asking if we're going to see updated textures with the Lich King expansion, since he feel WoW is a bit too much "WC3.5" (Warcraft 3.5). Nethaera, a Blizzard representative replies:

We have some really amazing graphics and textures going in with Wrath of the Lich King. I believe the art team is really outdoing themselves as have all of the teams developing the expansion. We are still retaining the style that makes Warcraft, well, Warcraft, but hopefully you'll enjoy the newer elements that are being added in and the design of Northrend.

[Source]

From what I've seen so far, Wrath of the Lich King is dead on with how I picture Northrend like; dark, grim and cold. Burning Crusade was a bit sci-fi inspired and it seems like Lich King will go back to WoW's roots and be more fantasy-like. Time will tell, though.

Are we going to see a change in minimum requirements for WotLK?

This is a question which appear quite often. Nethaera replies:

Sorry. No updates on that end to share at this time. You know the drill. If and when we do have something to share we will.

[Source]

A slight change in the minimum system requirements wouldn't hurt, if we get nicer and more rich and detailed textures. What's your thoughts? WoW is famous for it's incredibly low system requirements.

How will the Closed Beta for Wrath of the Lich King work?

As always, with a Closed Beta for a game, there's several ways to get in. Through friends and contacts and usually there will be contests on different websites and it's possible a sign up form exists. Nethaera share some details regarding the Lich King closed beta with us:

We generally pull from many places so that we have a good variety of people in the beta. Some of it is random and some are winners from contests, or specific groups that we want to pull from. We don't have a specific schedule for you on who we will pull in or when to share with you, but we'll do what we can to keep people as informed as possible.

[Source]

Also, there's no real experience needed to get into the Closed Beta, except that you have a World of Warcraft account in good standing of course...

There is no minimum level of experience needed since we look at a broad spectrum of testers. We want people of all experience levels to be able to share their experiences with us so that we know where we might need to work on something more. We don't necessarily want to make one aspect too hard or too easy on either end of things.

[Source]

Something that many might find interesting is that there will be a sign up process to "apply" for the Closed Beta.

I just thought I'd update this thread with a little extra information to let people know that there will be a sign up process when it comes time for the beta as well.

Please note that that time is not now. Please be aware that there are some scams currently running that are asking people to sign up for Wrath of the Lich King beta. We will let everyone know when it is time to sign up.

[Source]

Comic Contest: Honorable Mentions

Blizzard updated their Comic Contest gallery with a new Honorable Mentions comic.

Impressive Fan Arts

Azazel a very talented artist has released two sexy fan arts, they might not be considered safe for work, take this into consideration please.

Previous recent news

M'uru dies a 3rd time, Fan Art Contest, Multi Boxing

Zyuu — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:53:03 GMT

Premonition managed to kill M'uru making it the third kill in the world. Congrats! View the loot they got below and the updated M'uru loot table.

We've posted about SK Gaming's kill here and Exodus here.

The Loot:

Full known loot table of M'uru

Frostmourne Fan Art Contest

You've seen the icy, menacing eyes, and gleaming metal and heard the ominous names of Arthas holding Frostmourne. Now we are calling all artists to bring these images to life with their vision of Arthas with Frostmourne!

Starting May 7, 2008, Epic Weapons and Blizzard Entertainment will be looking for the best original pieces of artwork that show the Lich King Arthas Menethil wielding his trusted runeblade Frostmourne and the Grand Prize Winner will receive a full sized 47" long replica of the Frostmourne sword courtesy of Epic Weapons and a guaranteed entry into the beta test of Wrath of the Lich King! Two runner up winners will also be selected for entry into the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King beta test.

We'd like to extend our thanks to Epic Weapons for the generous donation of the Frostmourne replica for this event, and for more information about Frostmourne, you can head over to (http://www.epicweapons.com/)

Visit the contest page (http://www.blizzard.com/us/inblizz/co.../frostmourne/) to learn more about the contest!

[Source]

Four Latest Fan Art

Here's the four most recent Fan Art submissions that Blizzard accepted and published on the official Fan Art website.

For more fan art check out the official site.

Multi Boxing

What's your thoughts on boxing? I.e one person playing more then one character at the same time. Many seem to dislike it, while there's quite a few that go in favor for it. Either way, A Blizzard employee replied and said that theor official stance is that they do not mind as long as each character is controlled by a human, i.e no botting or automated actions being done.

A player posted this:

I'm not sure if you know what Multiplexing (Boxing) is, For those who don't know read the below for my personal description skip the next few paragraphs if you already know.

Multiplexing, What is it?

Multiplexing is when someone uses either a program or a "splitter" to allow them to play 5 characters at the same time. For example, the user will press Thunderbolt rank X on the emitter (First character chosen) soon after the 4 other characters will cast the same spell.

What is "Boxing?"

Boxing is a sport (Ofc) But the term "Boxing refers to a Box, e.g cardboard box. And when 5 of the same class do the same thing, you could call this "Boxing"

The effect of Multiplexing

Multiplexing has a huge effect on PvP, You must be wondering "Why?"

Well firstly it will take either 5 random people or less than 5 people with a skilled healer to take down the 4-5 players (Box-ers). lets say the enemy that is Boxing is using 5 shamans. Those 5 shamans will be buffed by around 15 different buffs plus the 5 searing totems hitting for 200 in the least. Imagine getting hit by 5 chain lightings and a flood of Thunderbolts, You would only be able to survive with either more than 15 000 health or Good timing with cloak of shadows.

Secondly, Imagine your defending a flag in arathi basin, You and one other.

5 shamans rush towards you, before you can react there already is an arsenal of totems and 5 chain lightings on there way.

Luckily you rez at the spirit rez-er within 10 seconds and you can make your way back to the flag.

The first thing in your head is to interrupt the enemy which is trying to capture the flag. So you cash a single target spell, Sadly there are 5 Grounding totems protecting the flag capturer, and unless your a mage or hunter; there just isn't enough time to stop them capturing the flag.

Do you see this as fair? Show your opinions.

Thundgot, a European Blizzard Employee replied to this here and here:

We have stated several times that we have nothing against multiboxing. As long as the player controls each of the characters the player may run multiple clients/characters.

We're aware of some players not agreeing with us on this - on some topics people simply have to agree to disagree. At the same time, expressing disagreement in a nice way is of course no reason for jumping on someone. Constructive feedback and discussion is always encouraged. :)

This "debate" has really gone downwards by now. I'll be nice and just close it and hope some people feel bad about themselves when reading their own posts again, instead of going through all posts and suspending every person who simply had to turn to insults for lack of more mature input on the subject.

Feel free to start a new thread on the matter, or pick up one of the old ones where people have remained civil, but please keep it in constructive and respectful terms.

Thank you.

Early Morning Blues and Fan Comics

Zyuu — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:47:52 GMT

Today there's a couple of blue posts and two amusing comics available. Hopefully there will be more news throughout the day!

Early Morning Blues

PTR 2.4.2 has been extended and there's a discussion about why there's such a lack of info about Wrath of the Lich King. Also, concerned players ask why WoW is becoming the main focus of esports and arena's "only".

2.4.2 PTR extended

We have decided to put the 2.4.2 PTR up for some additional testing. The realms should once again be available for play.

[Source]

Lack of Wrath of the Lich King information

I can assure people that Wrath of the Lich King is coming along very well. But despite those assurances, people will always be looking for the proof. We'll get that to you when we can, however, and you'll be able to decide for yourselves. I'd like to think that from my own experiences, many people will be pleased with the results.

Do you think that enough news about the expansion has been conveyed to the playerbase to date?

Enough news? I don't think there is such thing as enough for the community until we've revealed everything we have up our sleeves. I doubt even that will be enough for people until they can experience it. I do believe there is a method to the madness on the release of information, however. I respect it and I look forward to the excitement that comes with it. It wouldn't do to release information before it's ready and we're ready both.

I think you also mistake my humor this morning for mocking. I would mock if I didn't care about the community, but that is far from true. I absolutely care about the community, but that's just my nature. I genuinely like people. I'm a bit crazy like that.

We've given everyone tastes of what is to come where we can. We've had updates on the Wrath site that give a bit more information on some of the areas people will find and the creatures in Northrend as well.

We'll have more to share and much like a large boulder, it's hard to get rolling sometimes, but all that will happen once it does, is it will pick up speed. I hope everyone is ready for it.

Information readiness depends on many internal factors of which I can't go into detail on, but much of it depends on whether we feel that what we have to share or show is at a point where we feel it's ready to be talked about or shown. We allow some wiggle room for things to change, but try to show things that are in a state of readiness and make sure it's known there is still room for change. We'd like to make sure that wiggle room isn't moshing room though. If you can grok the difference there.

We are Blizzard Entertainment, and we tend to do things that meet our own internal standards of readiness before we show it to other people or discuss it. Contrary to what people may believe, we don't like letting down our friends, family, or community as a whole by giving less than 150% of ourselves.

The Community may be ready, but we aren't quite there yet. Though, I don't think people should despair. We've come a long way now and we're full steam ahead.

Why is esport and arena the focus of the game?

Players are concerned about the esport because its contrary to what an MMO should be about.

If PvP was the focus of the game, why has a new island with new dungeons, new daily quests, and a server-wide event been added to the game recently?

World of Warcraft simply has many things happening in it. Just because we are running the 2008 WoW Arena Tournament doesn't mean everything else has stopped or been derailed because I can guarantee you, this isn't the case. All changes can easily be seen from just one personal perspective which causes confusion but we do take the whole game into consideration when making changes to it.

I understand your concern on the subject, when we have more details to share on the new zones, dungeons, and abilities that are part of the upcoming expansion, (and I'm assuming are what an MMO should be about) we'll let you know.

[Source #1]
[Source #2]

Comics

First comic is a honorable mention in the WoW Comic Contest.

Second one is pretty neat, it's illustrating how to beat the Illidan Stormrage encounter in Black Temple! Thanks to a friend who sent me this.

WotLK fake alpha screenshots, Fan made content, Comics

Zyuu — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:19:23 GMT

To follow up on the following news where we presented you with two never before seen priest season 4 armors, you can view all known season 4 armors at WOWDB here.

Wrath of the Lich King Screenshots from Blizzcon and GC07

Despite all rumors these screenshots are not from the current alpha version of WotLK. They are fairly old and was taken during Blizzcon and other conventions. However, since they very recently surfaced, we're posting them anyway. View the video clips that we posted earlier here.

Fan made Wrath of the Lich King maps and Dwarf hair

Kanaru from WoWWiki have made some interesting WotLK maps and Dwarf hair/face styles. Check them out below.

Dark Legacy Comic and Noobz's Comic have two new comic strips out that are great fun!

Fan asks court to ban real sloth and greed from WoW

Zyuu — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:05:04 GMT

A video game fan wants justice in the World of Warcraft. Antonio Hernandez have played WoW for some time now and is tired of the gold sellers and corruption that plague the game.

It will be waged in the Fort Lauderdale federal courthouse. The former assistant manager at an Orlando-area video game store is suing a company he says sells "virtual gold" from the "World of Warcraft" for real money. He wants IGE U.S. banned from selling gold - a practice commonly called "gold farming" or "real money trading" - because it hurts the game’s economy and ruins the entertainment experience, according to the lawsuit. Virtual gold, earned within the game, can be used for such things as buying and repairing equipment or learning new skills.

The case is thought to be the first of its kind - a lawsuit filed by a player seeking to ban "real money trading" within a virtual world. Hernandez wants a judge to certify the case as a class-action lawsuit, another potential first when it comes to lawsuits involving online role-playing games.

The legal fight is being closely watched by the fledgling field of "virtual law" and passionate "World of Warcraft" players.

"The real significance of this case is, ‘What are the rights of the (virtual world) community members when they go online?’" said C. Richard Newsome, Hernandez’s attorney.

Check out the full article here.

Gates open, Daily Blue, Char Migration, Fan Artwork

Zyuu — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:46:31 GMT

The Sunwell Plateau first gate has been open on the US realms since yesterday and today the EU gate opened.

At 2pm CET (5am PST) the gate opened in Europe.

SK Gaming and Nihilum have cleared the first three bosses and are now attempting the Eredar Twins encounter.

Daily Blue

Changes to zone-wide buffs

We are aware of this issue (buffs vanishing on logout), it was caused by a change to several zone-wide buffs (such as the buffs from killing onyxia). These buffs will be changed in the next patch to be removed only when zoning into a raid instance. (source)

Issue with Hunters Mark overwriting?

This is working correctly, once improved hunter's mark is on a target any Hunter's mark (improved or not) will refresh the duration of the existing mark (not overwrite it). The buff does not change in any way just the duration remaining. (source)

Unable to acquire the spell that summon the Paladin Epic Mount via quest

This issue is being investigated, until it is fixed, please contact a GM to get the necessary spell. (source)

Class changes now and in Wrath of the Lich King

I also wanted to add that it's possible there will be some class changes between now and the expansion, but major changes/overhauls are not likely until the expansion.

Overall it isn't that hard to change one thing, the issue is the ripple this will have down the chain. One small change can make a big impact on not just the class, but how well it performs in groups, in PvP, and in PvE so we have to evaluate as many scenarios as possible before making the change live. Based on one change we would want to check out all of the other classes and see what changes they need to keep things balanced too. Currently we are already working on going through every class in this way, while also adding a bunch of new things because, lets face it, we all like new things. (source)

Arena Tournament Ineligibility

Our legal team performed a detailed analysis of the way the tournament works and included all of the states whose residents would be eligible. We were also able to add some new countries to the Arena Tournament that were not eligible for our contests in the past. We continue to evaluate the eligible locations for our contests and will make additions in the future as we are able to. (source)

Free Character Migration in Europe

Due to population differences between some of the highest and lowest populated PvP realms, the following Free Character Migration will be available April 9th to 15th:

From: Frostmane, Grim Batol, Magtheridon, Twilight's Hammer
To: Bladefist, Dragonmaw, Spinebreaker

From: Molten Core
To: Stonemaul

Please note that the migration may be closed at any time should a destination realm's population rise too high.

FAQ: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/faq/charactermove.html...

Akama Fanart Wallpaper and more

We just added a new fan wallpaper to our World of Warcraft fan wallpapers section. This wallpaper features some amazing artwork with Akama, the leader of the Ashtongue Deathsworn, as he gloats over the corpse of the fallen Betrayer: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/download.../fan-wallpapers.html

View the 4 previous Fan wallpapers:

Noblegarden, Three Year Anniversary Contests Winners

Zyuu — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:57:07 GMT

Noblegarden

On Sunday there will be an World of Warcraft in-game event called Noblegarden..

..The great feast of Noblegarden has long been celebrated by the races of the Alliance and recently adopted by those of the Horde. On this joyous day, it is customary for the nobles and lords from each race to hide coins, candy, and the occasional treasures within special eggs painted to look like wildflowers. These eggs are then scattered around the major cities for the citizenry to find. From heroes to commoners, and everyone in between - the feast of Noblegarden is meant to bring communities together to share the joy of life and friendship.

Three Year Anniversary Contests Winners

The Three Year World of Warcraft Anniversary Contests have ended. The winning entries of the Fan Art Contests can be viewed below!

The first place winners Patrick Marques, F. Hessefort, and A. Puurlua all won one Dell XPS M1730 notebook computer each.

Amusing Fury of the Sunwell Trailer remake

The REAL Fury of the Sunwell Trailer - 2.4 Patch

var FO_218 = { movie:"http://dev.curse-gaming.com/static/flash/flvplayer.swf", width:"500", height:"350", majorversion:"7", build:"0", bgcolor:"#FFFFFF", allowfullscreen:"true", flashvars:"file=http://videos.cursebeta.com/stream2/premium/1282.flv&autostart=true" }; $("#flvplayer_218").click(function(event) { UFO.create(FO_218, "flvplayer_218"); $(this).unbind('click'); });

New Fan Art

Zyuu — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:24:34 GMT

There's new Fan Art posted in the Blizzard Fan Art Section. Personally I love browsing the fan art at the Blizzard site, some is incredible!

Go here for more great fan art.

Community Fan Art

Kody — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:24:12 GMT

Today I was cleaning up the Image Gallery, moving images to their appropriate categories, when I came across an amazing piece of Fan Art. This is, without a doubt, a display of the excellent artistic talent World of Warcraft players are capable of, and I wanted to share it with everyone that may not browse the Image Gallery every day. The Fan Art, titled "Lady", was submitted by the user Arith.

As a reminder, the Image Gallery is a free-upload hosting service for our community; if you have a piece of artwork you'd like to share with everyone, feel free to upload it. The same goes for Screenshots, Wallpapers, and any other type of images that fall within the appropriate game's portal*. To upload an image, simply click on the Submit Images link on the menu to the left, under the Image Gallery header, or click here.

Once on this page, enter the name of your image(the title to be displayed on your image's Curse Image Gallery page), select the appropriate category for your image, the game it's relevant to, and then locate the image to upload. Once all that is done, you can put in labels so that searches locate your image more quickly. Make sure that you also read and agree with the Terms of Use prior to submitting your image. After you've done this, click submit, and you'll be taken to your image's new page on the Curse Image Gallery!

- Posting unreleased content is not allowed and such images will be deleted as soon as found.

World of Warcraft : fan

New WotLK build soon, Four New Fan Arts

Four New Fan Arts

Latest Fan Art and Comics

Three Fan Arts and Russian Alpha Version

Blue Posts, Fan Art and Comic

M'uru dies a 3rd time, Fan Art Contest, Multi Boxing

The Loot:

Full known loot table of M'uru

Frostmourne Fan Art Contest

Four Latest Fan Art

Multi Boxing

Early Morning Blues and Fan Comics

Early Morning Blues

2.4.2 PTR extended

Lack of Wrath of the Lich King information

Why is esport and arena the focus of the game?

Comics

WotLK fake alpha screenshots, Fan made content, Comics

Wrath of the Lich King Screenshots from Blizzcon and GC07

Fan made Wrath of the Lich King maps and Dwarf hair

New WoW related comics

Fan asks court to ban real sloth and greed from WoW

Gates open, Daily Blue, Char Migration, Fan Artwork

Daily Blue

Changes to zone-wide buffs

Issue with Hunters Mark overwriting?

Unable to acquire the spell that summon the Paladin Epic Mount via quest

Class changes now and in Wrath of the Lich King

Arena Tournament Ineligibility

Free Character Migration in Europe

Akama Fanart Wallpaper and more

Noblegarden, Three Year Anniversary Contests Winners

Noblegarden

Three Year Anniversary Contests Winners

Amusing Fury of the Sunwell Trailer remake

New Fan Art

Community Fan Art