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Real ID Party System No Longer Going Premium
Blizzard announced that their Real ID cross realm party system is now out of beta testing. Apparently it's here to stay as a free service rather than the initially speculated premium one--good news to those of us who made frequent use of this service. Of course, this shouldn't come as any surprise given both its popularity as a service and the negativity it was met with when it was announced as potentially premium only.
We’re happy to announce that the testing period for World of Warcraft's new Real ID Party system is now complete, and the feature is now officially live! We received a lot of great feedback from the community throughout the course of our testing, and we appreciate everyone taking the time to share their thoughts and experiences with us.
For those who haven't yet had a chance to try it out, the Real ID Party system allows players to invite Real ID friends of the same faction to a 5-player normal or Heroic dungeon, regardless of what realm their friends are on. This new feature makes it easier than ever for real-life friends to play together, and it's available to all World of Warcraft players at no additional charge -- all
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Blizzard 2011 Global Writing Contest
Blizzard just announced their writing contest today--of notable interest is the fact that it's now one month instead of two months to get your piece done! You better not get writer's block with that kind of deadline, eh?
Blizzard Entertainment is proud to present the 2011 Blizzard® Global Writing Contest!
You sit at your typewriter, hands frozen in fear by the sound of crumpling paper from the darkness behind you. Shadows of broken quills encroach on your sight's periphery but slither out of view when you turn toward them. Summoning your courage, you lash out at the apparitions before they fade, only to awaken in a cold sweat with pencils and pens gripped tight in your clenched fists. You know what this dream foretells: the 2011 Global Writing Contest is upon us!
The Prophecy of the Unblinking Eye portends of a time when writing contest judges, mad with ocular fortitude from judging the 2009 and 2010 Global Writing Contests, would brazenly unleash the powers of the Ocunomicon. Seeking rituals to infuse themselves with the twisted souls of fel ocularians, they look to wield powers not meant for this or any other contest. But the sacr
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News Round Up: Tyrande Whisperwind, Tier 11 Acquisition, and More
It was an unusually slow Friday today, but it looks like Blizzard has posted the latest story to their lore section--this one is on Tyrande, one of the more overlooked leaders in World of Warcraft's lore scene.
In some exciting Wowhead news, we have a sweepstakes coming up next week that will give our users a chance at some fabulous gaming gear. We'll talk more about that once it's live, but I figured I'd give everyone a little heads up!
On Epics for Casual Raiders
We've offered players who don't raid a reasonable way to gear up, and achieve high levels of power. The JP/VP system makes a lot of sense to us, and gives everyone a pretty good personal progression track in addition to loot drops, and we feel pretty good about the system as it stands. That doesn't necessarily mean that we think that full sets are a necessary part of that picture, though.
We still want to preserve some of the most prestigious PvE loot for players who face down raid content (even if it's a tier behind), and we feel that completing a tier set means that a raid needs to fit in there somewhere. That design makes sense to us, and we want to preserv
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News Round Up: Ethereals Are Back in Blizzard Teaser
So Blizzard just posted a really weird picture to their Facebook of ethereal NPCs. A blue posted it with no explanation as presumably a teaser. At this point, it's probably a hint for either 4.3 or the next expansion; in particular, maybe it even hints towards a redone Outlands or further character customization. Whatever it does mean, though, it's pretty crazy.
Curiouser and curiouser...
4.2.2 Patch Notes PTR (August 11th)
World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.2.2
Notes for all World of Warcraft patches can be found
here
.
Dungeons & Raids
Firelands
The visibility of Ragnaros’ Dreadflame ability has been increased.
The size of Ragnaros’ hit box during the final phase of the Heroic encounter has been increased.
User Interface
Raid Frames should
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News Round Up: Latest Hotfixes (August 10), Blizz on Character Limits
Latest hotfixes have been posted, including a previously undocumented change to the dailies for the
Molten Front
, which were hotfixed with the patch earlier this week. Instead of one elemental spawning, three now spawn; this should make getting the achievement way easier as many people still didn't have it (despite doing the dailies every day). It was completely RNG and some servers didn't even have an elemental switch yet.
Latest Hotfixes (8/10)
August 10
Classes
Death Knight
Applicable death knight abilities are now using the correct amount of resources (and putting them on cooldown) when there are 4 Death Runes available and the Unholy Runes are depleted.
Druid
Druids that shapeshift will now clear the
Potion of Illusion
buff.
Mage
damage from
Mastery: Ignite
is no longer penalized by Resilience more than once, nor can it gain double benefit from
(mastery).
Dungeons & Raids
Dungeon Finder
If a player is kicked by vote
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News Round Up: World of Warcraft Loses Another 300k Subscribers and More
The awaited second-quarter call just happened and World of Warcraft is at 11.1 million subscribers, down another 300k from the last reported number. The previous quarter had reported a loss of 600k.
However, this doesn't mean revenues themselves are down or that Blizzard itself is in trouble.
Gamasutra reported today
on Activision Blizzard's second fiscal quarter earnings which were 53% higher than predicted. The company largely beat its expectations because of a large increase in digital sales company wide, which includes things like Blizzard's digital subscriptions and store. CEO Bobby Kotick followed up by saying that there would be continued investments in all of Blizzard's staple titles, including the upcoming unnamed MMO nicknamed Titan.
Diablo III Beta Test Approaches!
Remember to have your beta profile up to date so you can have a chance to be in the Diablo III beta!
The beta test approaches! We’ve just updated our System Check program and would like everyone to update their Battle.net Beta Profile information by running t
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Virtual BlizzCon Tickets Now on Sale
It seems that virtual BlizzCon tickets were put up today so I think I'd do a quick post to tip everyone off. A virtual ticket is the perfect way to watch BlizzCon unfold for cheap--and it also includes the in-game pet, which is Murkablo (
Murky's Little Soulstone
) this year.
They are $39.99 (
North America
) and €29.99 (
Europe
) in their respective regions.
Want to experience the panel discussions, tournaments, game-related announcements, and all the excitement of BlizzCon 2011 from the comfort of your own home? Then be sure to check out
the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket
!
The BlizzCon 2011 Virtual Ticket is now available for purchase around the world for $39.99 USD (pricing may vary by region). Virtual Ticket coverage will be available as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via Pay-per-View on DIRECTV in the United States, granting viewers a front-row seat to all of the action on the show floor including exclusive interviews, demos, and more!
DIRECTV customers who order the Pay-per-View even
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Blizzard Trademarks "Mists of Pandaria," Next Expansion?
Put on your tinfoil hats--it looks like an April Fools' joke may become a reality. Last week, Blizzard filed for a trademark for "Mists of Pandaria" under computer software. This is a common practice for the registration of expansion titles; for example, the Cataclysm was filed for trademark on June 26, 2009 and its domain was bought subsequently. Similarly, a Pandaria domain was also purchased last week.
This means that it's possible that the next expansion will be announced at BlizzCon and that it will be Mists of Pandaria.
Let the speculation run wild--what do you guys think? Is this our future expansion or a false alarm? Will the pandarens be a playable race for both sides, a neutral faction even though Blizzard has said that they like factions to be identifiable and distinct for horde and alliance? Or maybe their role will be more of a lore one, focusing on them as quest hubs and a central conflict?
Click here to see the official filing!
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New Wowhead Feature: Guides
A lot of Wowhead's forum goers pen some pretty awesome guides--from what gear to choose for a relevant patch to 10-man strategies for Firelands, we've seen it all. Even our own volunteer Perculia has written some great guides. However, there's never been a good way to highlight these contributions and let more of our database see them.
Until now, anyway.
Recently we have released a new functionality to Wowhead: the ability to write and share guides. This is in its first phase of implementation which is its most basic. Wowhead users can now
write their own guides
, share them with Wowhead's community, and view others' guides as well. Eventually, those users who write guides will find themselves with more perks and there will be forum integration with guides, but we wanted to get this phase out to the public for testing and feedback. We've also imported the most viewed of Wowhead's guides to serve as an example and a testing platform for those who want to see what an ideal and complete guide looks like.
So go forth and educate the masses! There's even an achievement (or four) for those of you who get really into guide writing!
Click here to che
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News Round Up: Diablo III Auction House News, BlizzCon Contests, and More
Finally, some news on Diablo III was posted overnight from Blizzard on
their official website
. The biggest news was that there will be an auction house that functions with real life money in addition to another auction house that is in-game currency only. They've posted FAQs about both features which tell you everything you need to know and we've included them below.
It's worth mentioning that this bombshell--real life money for items in Diablo III--has been received both extremely positively and extremely negatively. It's created a lot of debate and people are
very
divided about this. Personally, as a WoW fansite, we think this feature can potentially work for the Diablo series but should stay far away from World of Warcraft. However, that's just our personal opinion, and we welcome yours. We can see both sides of the debate clearly and understand people will have different view points.
Diablo III News
Diablo III Beta FAQ
What are your goals for this beta?
The primary reason for the Di
Live
Twilight of the Dragons Loot Giveaway
A new TCG expansion called Twilight of the Dragons just came out and Cryptozoic decided to share some of the loot cards--through their Facebook, of course!
Starting today, the WoW TCG makers will be giving away two
Nightsaber Cub
on Monday then another two on Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday they'll be giving away two
Fool's Gold
for each day. Finally, not to be outdone by the previous prizes, on Friday they'll be giving away two
Amani Dragonhawk
s to a lucky winner.
So how do you become a lucky winner? All week, all you have to do is comment on
their Facebook
to get entered to win.
Today tell them what you'd name your very own
Nightsaber Cub
if you got one
over here
to be entered to win!
Nightsaber Cub
Everyone likes vanity pets and 4.1 saw the release of a new style of pet cats much to every vanity pet collector's surprise! Now there's another runt to this in-game litter. Much like the
Panther Cub
, the
Nightsaber Cub
is an adorable cat based off one of the game's more memorable mounts. He's also this TCG expansion
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News Round Up: Heroic Firelands Hotfixes and More
There were a lot of changes to Firelands tonight--in particular, heroic Baleroc and Majordomo have significantly less HP along with changed fight dynamics.
Heroic 25-man Baleroc is now 196 million down from 217 million while heroic 25-man Majordomo is now 432 million health.
This seems like it's less of a nerf like we first reported and more of a "change."
For example, in addition to lowering health, on Baleroc they also reduced the rate at which stacks are gained from Torment. This makes the fight much harder to heal, requiring either two tanks or more healers from a usually one tank and four healer fight. This changes the fight's dynamic completely.
Heroic Ragnaros Kill Video
Making good on their promise to post their Ragnaros kill video after another guild downed the fight,
Paragon
posted it tonight. Can you count how many healers they used? Hint: not many.
Diablo 3 Beta Slated For By September 30th
A MvP poster said that the beta is supposed to go live by September 30th on the forums today... While this isn't a Blizzard employee, it is someone who knows more than a regular poster w
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News Round Up: Blizzard at SDCC, More Twilight of the Aspects, and Feral Druids
Quick announcement: We are looking for Brazilian localizers who speak both Portuguese and English fluently so if you are one, send an email to
ashelia@wowhead.com
. If you applied in the past, feel free to reach out again and start up our email chain again.
In other more pertinent news, San Diego Comic Con was this weekend and there was a big Blizzard presence. Chris Metzen showed up with a panel of Blizzard writers and partners; there was a general presentation on the future of Blizzard's licensed products including comics and merchandise then there was an open question session where fans were able to ask Metzen about anything and everything from World of Warcraft.
His answers hinted towards Thrall's saga not being done yet--a possible return as warchief may be in the cards--and also a new focus on alliance in future novels. To help balance out the recent focus on horde, the next novel will be about Jaina Proudmoore. Check out
the transcript and video up at BlizzPlanet
as well as a more in-depth summary.
Second Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects Exc
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News Round Up: WoW Released in Brazil, Adding Battlegrounds, Twilight of the Aspects, and More
World of Warcraft is coming to Brazil and Blizzard posted an excerpt of their newest novel, Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects! Big news, eh? We also have the latest blue posts from the past few days rounded up, including rumors of adding more battlegrounds and a breakdown of need vs. greed in World of Warcraft 5-mans.
SAO PAULO, Brazil. -- July 21, 2011 -- At an exclusive press event at the Museu da Casa Brasileira in São Paulotoday, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced that a fully localized Brazilian Portuguese version of its critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft®, will be released in Brazil later this year. Brazilian Portuguese will be the ninth officially supported language for World of Warcraft worldwide, and the third supported language in Latin America, complementing the existing English and Spanish versions.
An official Brazilian Portuguese World of Warcraft community website will also be available at launch.
In addition, players in Brazil will have access to customer service for the game in Brazilian Portuguese.
"One of our top priorities is ensuring that our ga
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News Round Up: Tier 11 Valor Point Hotfix, Mastery, and More
A lot of people were complaining about
valor point acquisition
being from only Firelands and heroics. They're back in tier 11 raids now as of tonight!
In other news,
Swifty got permabanned
and then got unbanned for accidentally crashing a server when thousands of level 1 alts were made. There were a lot of blue posts about that--the community managers spent the day troll policing. Poor guys, you know we love you.
Due to some recent player feedback we’ve made the decision to implement a hotfix that will put Valor Points back on the bosses in Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the Four Winds (except Argoloth).
We agreed that players should have some additional options for earning Valor Points beyond Firelands, Zandalari dungeons, and tier 11 Heroic difficulty raids. We don’t want raiding guilds to feel like they have to raid Firelands AND the old raids every week, but we do want players to feel like they have some options besides running ZA/ZG over and over.
Bosses in these raids will award 35 VP o
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ZAM Giveaway: 30 Free Copies of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
Our friends at
ZAM
are giving away 30 copies of the new Magic: The Gathering game,
Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
, so we thought we'd give you guys a heads up. Whether you're a die-hard fan of MtG or someone who always wanted to play but found card collecting too daunting, you'll probably love the digital version. With over 10 decks, 160 cards, and the ability to play against the computer or your friends, it has the complexity of the original cards with the ease of digital.
In preparation for this giveaway, ZAM has an
in-depth guide to getting started
explaining all you need to know about Magic: The Gathering. They also made an
awesome personality quiz
based on Magic's colors which everyone should check out.
Click here to enter to win one of 30 copies of the game!
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Ask the Devs #11: Healing
Ask the Devs #11 was posted and this time it's all about healing. As someone who has played a healer since vanilla, I probably have too many opinions here so I'll let you guys do most of the reading--overall, there are some good questions, especially the one about Holy priest viability in top PvE content, but the answers aren't necessarily the best. And while Mana Tide is brought up, they don't talk much about how currently many guilds bring a Resto shaman in over another class solely for that buff.
I spend a lot of my time in raids keeping Water Shield up, which I rely on to maintain enough mana. There have been times I've neglected to heal someone because I had to refresh Water Shield. Why are shaman healers less effective compared to other healing classes? – Epistemology (NA), Ерз (EU-RU)
We’d like to be more consistent about what does and doesn’t trigger Water Shield. Having the shield trigger when taking direct damage, and consume an orb, is consistent with how all shaman shields work. On some encounters though, constant pulsing damage probably burns through those charges too quickly and doesn’t need
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4.2 Hotfixes (7/12 - 7/14) and Real ID Reminder
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News Round Up: Cross Server Real ID Grouping, Valor Point Acquisition, and More
A little while ago Blizzard mentioned that they had a new Real ID feature in development--one that would allow Real ID friends to form parties across multiple realms, so that friends can run dungeons together, even if they are not on the same server.
Well, this feature is now somewhat done and available to be tested for free. Blizzard also mentioned that this will be one of the premium features of the Real ID service, so it might become paid in the future.
When delving into the depths of Azeroth's darkest dungeons, it always helps to have some friends at your side... now you're able to issue a call to arms no matter what realm they play on. We're pleased to announce the new Real ID Party feature is now available for testing! This new feature will allow World of Warcraft players to invite their real-life
Real ID friends
of the same faction to a party regardless of the realm they play on, and then queue up for a 5-player regular or Heroic dungeon.
To learn more about Real ID, please visit the Real ID
web page
and read the FAQ.
For more information about how the Real
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News Round Up: Latest Hotfixes, Honor Reimbursement, Baine Bloodhoof, and Firelands Talk
The honor reimbursement is still on track for happening next week--if you bought a piece of season 9 gear before it became season 10 ilevel, you will be receiving 4000 honor as compensation.
Otherwise, we have tons of blue posts to share with you. There are a lot of
Firelands
ones, specifically about the design of the encounters and their difficulty. There's also a new story for the lore fans out there involving Baine Bloodhoof.
Update @ 9:40PM CST: Latest 4.2 hotfixes have just been posted!
Latest 4.2 Hotfixes (7/12)
July 12
Classes
Pet Defensive stance will no longer cause the pet to assist the player while a vanity pet is active.
Druid
Rake should again be able to trigger Primal Fury.
Dungeons & Raids
Firelands
Characters who make for a good Dinner Time should no longer be ported to Ancient Core Hounds they are not in combat with when the ability’s effects end.
Fire Scorpion and Flamewaker corpses no longer provide loot or reputation when they’re eaten by Hell Hounds and Fire Turtles.
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