It's been barely a week since patch 3.3.2 went live, and the Icecrown Citadel raid is already getting a few tweaks. The drops from the Lich King boss are going to be updated, according to a post on the European World of Warcraft forums. The changes are as follows:

"After reviewing several items available from the Lich King encounter, we've decided to re-optimise certain weapons that didn't meet with our expectations and the quality that the Lich King expects. The weapons listed below, both their Normal and Heroic versions, will now better represent their respective roles and present more intriguing options to players.

• Royal Scepter of Terenas II: MP5 replaced with Haste rating
• Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas: Critical Strike replaced with Haste rating
• Heaven’s Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies: Armor Penetration replaced with Haste rating
• Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer: Armor Penetration replaced with expertise rating
• Fal’inrush, Defender of Quel’thalas: Haste rating replaced with Armor Penetration"

The official thread can be read here, and it goes into great detail about the updated drops. These new items seem to be a much better reward for ending the Lich King than the game previously offered. 

We have a thread dedcated to The Lich King raid here in our forums for discussions on tactics and drops.

More hotfixes for 3.3.2 were revealed today, this time dealing specifically with the Death Knight and Paladin's tanking abilities. The changes, according to Blizzard, were made in response to initial observations of tanks in the new Icecrown Citadel run that was added in the original update.

"Paladin:

While the Paladin has taken a slight hit to a couple of his abilities, the Death Knight class has had stats slightly increased, which Blizzard says was done with PvP in mind. The official breakdown of the fixes can be read here. The majority of players seem to be elated at both the Death Knight's upgrade and the Paladin's cutbacks, although a few grumbly Paladins disagree with the changes.

Read up on the full notes and talk about it in our thread in the forums.

It's been a while since Blizzard officially announced Cataclysm, the third expansion for World of Warcraft. With new management on board, it's finally time to catch up with the rest of the world. This article aims to cover everything there is worth knowing about Cataclysm at the moment, and what to expect in future.

The Story

Cataclysm marks the return of Deathwing, the black dragon from Warcraft II. Since the end of that game's story, Deathwing has been resting in the prison plane of Deepholm, nursing his wounds and growing stronger every day. His escape from Deepholm triggers a series of catastrophic eruptions all across the continent, consuming Azeroth in fire. The Horde and Alliance now both have their attention torn away from Northrend and back to The Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.

New Places To Explore

High level players will have a few new zones to explore, including Vashij'ir, a sunken city between the continents. Areas like Uldum, Mount Hyjal, The Twilight Highlands, and Gilneas are now available. However, perhaps the most interesting feature of Cataclysm is the return of old areas of The Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor ravaged by the titular cataclysm caused by Deathwing's return. A wide array of aesthetic changes are being made to classic places, which should make things more interesting for people who choose to roll a new character - which, given the fact that there are two new races to play, is entirely likely. Revamped areas will be presented as new places for low-level characters to explore. For high-level players, eight new dungeons are being added.

New Races

Goblins and Worgen are to be available as playable races, for Horde and Alliance respectively. Both will have all-new starting zones, encompassing levels 1-15 comfortably. Each race will have a rich backstory to comb over, with new lore and new quests for players taking part in their initial 15-level climb. In particular, the addition of Worgen marks a decidedly different tone for an Alliance race; they are by far the most vicious and cunning of their roster thus far. 

New Character Builds

As well as getting two new races to choose from, players building new characters will have more options when creating a character in one of the old races. Practically every race is getting a few options that were previously unavailable; for example, Dwarves can now be mages, and  Blood Elves will be able to roll as warriors. These changes are aimed at making the experience of building a character up from scratch fresh again, especially for seasoned players who may have dabbled in everything under the sun by now.

A Higher Level Cap

The maximum level has been raised from 80 to 85, with a focus on providing interesting end-game content for maxed-out characters, rather than spreading the experience out further over leveled quests. A lot of effort is being put into making the 1-60 climb a refreshing experience, both for newcomers and veterans making alts.

Along with all these highlights, Cataclysm will feature a slew of other changes and additions, including a new world PvP zone. The sheer amount of new content for high and low level characters alike aims to please as many people as possible, and, looking at all the things we know so far, it looks like Blizzard will succeed. While Wrath of the Lich King catered to high-level players, this latest expansion will truly have something for everyone. For full details and official updates on the expansion, visit Blizzard's official page for the game, and then discuss it in our forum!

Yesterday, the 25-man Lich King run was bested by Ensidia. However, Blizzard has temporarily banned the guild for what it views as an unfair use of an exploit within the game. Saronite Bombs, which were disabled yesterday as part of a hotfix, were used by the guild to make the encounter significantly less difficult.

Naturally, Ensidia is up in arms over Blizzard's decision, and posted an angry (and explicit) response on their blog. In their view, the exploit was fair game, and it was Blizzard's fault for letting it slip into the patch in the first place.

What do you think? Tell us how you feel about the legitimacy of glitches and exploits for gaming in the forum.

The first batch of in-game fixes for World of Warcraft 3.3.2 hit today, as posted on the official Blizzard forums.

Read about the fixes here. The most notable (and amusing) hotfix isn't mentioned there; namely, the temporary removal of Saronite Bombs, which had been used to deal damage during Frozen Throne runs by Ensidia in their recent 25-man Lich King victory.

Patch 3.3.2 only went live yesterday, but The Lich King has already fallen to a 10-man squad of players from Blood Legion.

The normal-difficulty 10-player run was the first successful dethroning of the good ol' king, and thus far, Blood Legion remains the only group to take him down. Good luck to them - and anyone else - when they try the hard 25-player run, to say the least.

The World of Warcraft Armory iPhone and iPod Touch app will soon be able to access your character's wheelings and dealings in the Auction House, according to an official posting on the Blizzard forums.

This will make the already helpful Armory app even more essential for iPhone-wielding WoW players, enabling them to keep track of bids and sales without needing to be at their own computer. How exactly this functionality will work is yet to be determined, but given how slick the Armory app is already, we can probably expect it to be a pretty seamless addition. However, it's noted that at least some access to the revamped Armory will come at a premium. If you're good at typing with your thumbs, point your iPhone's browser over to the forums and tell us what you think about this upcoming feature!

Eagle-eyed Blizzard fans noticed that the webpage for the Anaheim Convention Center listed Blizzcon 2010 between the dates October 22nd to 23rd.

Oddly, the listing has since been removed, and while according to WoW.com, the Convention Center has "99.9%" confirmed the event, it's still not back up as of yet. Stay tuned for more news on Blizzard's yearly convention, or post your travel plans in the forums.

The Lich King falls today as patch 3.3.2 rolls out for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. As well as closing another chapter in the Warcraft saga, the patch adds a myriad of fixes to dungeons and raids, as well as a few class fixes and general UI tweaks. Among the highlights:

• Brann Bronzebeard will move faster while escorting him in the Halls of Stone.
• Anomalous can only use Create Rift once, as opposed to three times.
• Pathing for enemies in The Old Kingdom has been rewritten, and some have been removed completely.
• Healing in PvP will now be 10% less effective than it was in the last patch while in Wintergrasp, Battlegrounds, and Arena fights. Arena season 8 is officially up and running, with new rewards.

There have been numerous other changes, most involving making certain dungeons easier by reducing certain attack rates. The biggest addition, though, is 3.3.2's new area: Frostwing Halls. This new dungeon ties the story of WotLK up neatly, and features five bosses, as well as 10 and 25 player raids.

For a full list of patch changes, including class updates and general tweakery, read Blizzard's official release notes here.

More WotLK goodness...New dungeons as per WorldofWarcraft.com!

We've updated the World of Warcraft Guide with two more dungeons introduced in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. This update includes Drak'Tharon Keep and Gundrak. Each page includes pertinent information on the dungeon or raid such as its location, final boss, and background lore, and contains a link to its loot table on the Armory.

Hey raid fans, ready for more epic gear, how about a new epic raid dungeon?  Check out this teaser from WorldofWarcraft.com!

As the next step in tiered raid progression in Wrath of the Lich King, Ulduar is set to let players enjoy gorgeous setpieces, sprawling battlefields, and innovative boss encounters. Ulduar's design aims to provide a fun, unique, and innovative raid experience, and it includes additional challenges and rewards for seasoned raiders.

In this sneak-peek at World of Warcraft's newest raid dungeon, we'll take a look at some of the new content that makes Ulduar stand out.

Blizzard has announced the dates for the next BlizzCon on the WorldofWarcraft.com site!  I am excited for this one!

Blizzard Entertainment today announced plans for its fourth BlizzCon gaming convention, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo universes. To learn more, please read our press release.

The latest BlizzCast is now available!? Here is the nuts n bolts from WorldofWarcraft.com, inculding a link to the BlizzCast site!

In the seventh BlizzCast, we take time to wrap up the second World of Warcraft expansion with Production Director J. Allen Brack and Lead Game Designer Jeffrey Kaplan. Also in this episode, Crygil sits down with Senior Vice President of Creative Development Chris Metzen to discuss the lore of Wrath of the Lich King.

We all love themed WoW stuff.  I adore my Collector's Editon of WotLK.  Now there are some more great items to use with the lateste expansion in its theme according to WorldofWarcraft.com.

Just in time for the journey to Northrend, SteelSeries is launching a new line of Wrath of the Lich King-themed peripherals: the new Zboard Limited Edition Gaming Keyboard, Qck Limited Edition Lich King Exclusive Gaming Surface, and 5C Limited Edition Frost Wyrm Exclusive Gaming Surface. All are made with high-quality materials and feature artwork from Wrath of the Lich King. Please visit SteelSeries.com for full details on each of their features and availability.

Some great stuff is coming out for Arena.  Those players that enjoy the Pvp, not to mention the gear take a look at this from WorldofWarcraft.com: 

 

Read what's on the developers' minds, find out about upcoming plans, and offer your own insight in these recent discussions from our community forums.

Gladiators Ready?
In the latest patch, we introduced a new Arena matchmaking system designed to provide players with better competition and more fitting opponents based on their lifetime performance. Review the details of this new system and take part in the conversation on our PvP Discussion forum. Read on!

Matchmaker, Matchmaker
If you have more questions about how the new matchmaking rating and other ratings fit into the new Arena system -- or if you just want a glimpse at our future plans for fine-tuning -- we go into further detail in this post. Read on!

Combat Theory
Want to hear more about the design philosophy behind the new Arena system? Last week, the developers laid out the thought process and principles behind the change. Read on!

We've been busy working with PLAYXPERT to deliver a totally unique experience for you while you play the games you love. This new technology allows you to use gamer-inspired tools without the need to alt-tab. Now for those of you with dual monitors, this is already an option. But for the majority of users out there this will be a new luxury, allowing you to surf the web, chat with friends, listen to music and even kill process's all while still in-game.

We have built these Stratics Community tools just for you.

DOWNLOAD HERE

The hand-picked widgets that will come standard for our users:

• Universal chat across all major chat IM tools (Yahoo, Xfire, Windows Live, ICQ, AIM, Gtalk)
• Pandora for your music listening pleasure while you're raiding or grinding in-game (Pandora has a US only restriction)
• Web browser widget so you can access the stratics news, reviews and even your guild pages while in-game and
• Switchblade so you can test playing your favorite games with a Xbox 360 controller.
• GoogleGadgets – Allows the user access to the wealth of Google Gadgets in-game
• Notepad – Gives the user the ability to use the Notepad application in-game to take notes for quests, locations, etc.

*The technology works on XP and Vista but the in-game overlay system will not be available to Vista users until January. Take note – the updater will auto-upgrade your vista version when the in-game support is added.*

More about the Technology:

If the latency issues got you down Blizzard has created new realms and is offering free transfers.  According to Bornakk on the WorldofWarcraft.com forums check out the details:

We will be offering free character moves from selected high population realms to a brand new realm, Fizzcrank, to assist in population dispersal. The ability to move a character on the selected source realms will become available starting on Monday, November 10 at 12:00PM PST, and is scheduled to run until Monday, November 24 at 12:00PM PST.

In the event that these realms meet our transfer goals before the scheduled end date, the transfers to that realm will be disabled. We highly recommend that if you are planning to transfer that you do so at your earliest convenience. No characters will be eligible for these free moves once the transfers have been closed.

Once the transfers open you can begin your transfer by visiting the Character Move page located here: https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/character-move.html

We will continue to evaluate realms and add more free character moves as we feel they are needed.

This came to me via Nethaera and if you use the WoW Forums it is important!

All forums on the official World of Warcraft forums will be temporarily switched over to read-only mode. While we would like to make every effort to ensure the forums allow the community to interact with each other, the current situation does not allow for this, or allow Blizzard to relay information to the community. Thus, all forums will be available as read-only to allow us to share information with the public. We hope that we can keep the limitation of access to a minimum and revert the forums to full functionality as soon as possible.

 

  We have also posted up some information on the Wrath Launch Help Center that can be found here:

            http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12651004995&postId=126492765041&sid=1#0

In a bold business decision Blizzard made an announcement today in regards to some of the issues people have experinced since the release of the last patch.  On the World of Warcraft forums, per Nethaara this is the latest!

"Since the release of the latest patch, Echoes of Doom, we have gone through a series of optimizations in order to increase overall game performance. We've seen steady, stable populations and a flurry of activity and excitement during the Hallow's End event and the latest rumblings of zombie attacks. It's been an exciting time for us as we draw closer to the release of our second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

We've reached a point where we feel we can now accurately evaluate the events since the patch release. Though overall downtime has been minimal, players have experienced latency, inaccessible instances, and general frustrations. We are therefore announcing that we will be issuing compensation to accounts in all realms in the US, Oceanic, and Latin American regions. Accounts that are currently active and in good standing will be credited with an additional three days of game time.

We would like to thank you for your patience during this time and look forward to seeing you in game! "

 

I've played a variety of online games and I have never seen a company do something like this for their players.  All I have to say is that this shows you how valued the members of World of Warcraft are!

Ghostcrawler said this quote will probably come back to haunt him, so might as well make it start now :)

There's some disdain on retribution specced paladins and how powerful they are in PVP. Ghostcrawler has put out a statement that they are aware of these issues and do plan on doing something about the damage that retribution paladins are currently doing. Here's the snippet:

Since these threads seem to be proliferating, I figure'd I'd just start a new one. Here is a quick Q&A.

Q: Is Ret OP?
A: Perhaps. We think Ret's dps isn't abnormally high in PvE, and may not even be high in PvP over the course of a long fight. Where we are worried is how much damage Ret can do up front. It's also Holy damage, which isn't a big deal when you're considering a fully sundered mob, but can turn into a lot of damage in PvP.

Q: Are we going to nerf Ret?
A: TO THE GROUND BABY. Okay, not really, but sometimes I can't resist. We'll see how much that quote comes back to haunt me. We will probably be making some changes soon, perhaps even hotfixes. We want to be very surgical about what we do. We don't want to overdo it, and we don't want to hurt their sustained PvE damage. When we've decided, I'll make sure you all know.

Q: Why did it take us this long to admit there was a problem when EVERYONE knew about it?
A: A couple of weeks ago there were some bugs with weapon equipping that caused some problems that of course were being exploited. We didn't want to nerf Ret TO THE GROUND BABY only to discover that the weapon problem was causing 90% of it.

Q: Enough about Ret. Unholy death knights are worse!
A: That wasn't a question, but we think we have Unholy in a better place now. We made some changes to a few deep talents (that the DK community is already aware of, so don't fret) to get Unholy's dps more in line. Also, you aren't going to see any PvP DKs for a long time, so we need to focus on paladins for now.

Q: Hi. Thanks for the update. While you're here, can I ask you all these other offtopic questions about paladins or the game in general?
A: ...

Blizzard held a panel this afternoon showcasing their new Dungeons and Raids coming in Wrath of the Lich King. We got a live walk through of the dungeons also to see exactly what they will look like, all the content seen is currently on beta so nothing mind blowing was announced but some good information was released:

Halls of Lighting (5 man)

• Five player dungeon located in The Storm Peaks

• Discover the secrets of the Titans

• Epic lore + Epic gameplay = Awesome

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom (5 man)

• Another Old God encounter (C'Thun)

• Five player dungeon deep in the heart of Azjol-Nerub

• Features both indoor and outdoor terrain

• What horrors lie underneath Northrend?

Chamber of the Aspects (10/25 man)

• Raid zone located inside Wyrmrest Temple

• Expandable

• Choose your difficulty and reward!

• Hardest way is not killing any of the Twilight Drakes; Twilight Drake as a reward, very difficult

Eye of Eternity (10/25 man)

• Home of Malygos, Aspect of Magic

• Showcases new features of expansion

• Epic multiple phase fight.

• During the fight you receive help from the Red Dragonflight

Itemization

• Higher quality loot from Heroic dungeons

• Different currencies per raid tier (emblem of heroism / emblem of valor)

• Separate sets for 10 and 25 player raids

Q&A

• May have something to get people out raid so you can keep raid moving

• Dunno about 10 / 25 legendaries; more lite Ataiesh

• Not designing encounters for the dual spec abilities

• Make decisions of older dungeons based on how they fit into the storyline

• Emblems can be used to purchase set pieces

• Attunements pretty much being rid of (minus the summoning of Malygos)

• Hunter pet tanks should be able to off tank

• More difficult encounters will come in later, possibly not as hard as Sunwell

• Dropping more items per boss

Blizzard held a panel at BlizzCon this morning to let us in on some of the upcoming plans for the world of PvP in Wrath showing us some content from arenas, battlegrounds and Wintergrasp the new open PvP zone.

The Ring of Valor

• Looks similar to Gurabashi Arena with two pits in the middle surrounded by spikes

• Arena located in Orgimar

• Animated Platforms – pillars that rise up and down on specific times, block LoS, can be ridden on also

• Dynamic Fire Hazard – timed intervals on the strip on the ground, 10% of HP damage 3 ticks

• Very close starting positions – rise on elevators in the middle of the arena, and start up very close to each other, almost Roman gladiator style, very dynamic and different from other arenas

• Pillars all have unique symbols so that more complex matches (5v5) can have more coordination

Dalaran Sewers

• Small and compact, but wanted unique gameplay decision

• Simple layout

• Dynamic Water Feature, not random specific timer, creates LoS block; if you're standing on it when it is coming up it will knock you back; not too much damage; brings a much more dynamic feel to arena

• No Mounts allowed in this arena

• Starting areas off-limits

• Crates on corners of raised platform for some permanent LoS strategy

Strand of the Ancients

• Attack/Defend type

• Upgrading it to 15/15 and double the amount of siege vehicles

• Siege combat and destructible buildings

• Colored walls to allow for easier calling out

Wintergrasp

• Non-instanced PvP Zone

• Siege Vehicle Combat

• Something for players to do that they cannot do anywhere else in the game

• Attack/Siege Map

• Rank system, checks to make sure people are contributing

• Still find tuning the amount of kills required to be able to get siege vehicles

• Destructible Buildings

• Coodown in between each game, currently 2 ½ hours

• Benefits include daily quests, a unique raid instance for the winning faction that drops PvP and PvE loot and has a 1-day cooldown; all bosses will drop a form of currency that you can use to purchase items in Wintergrasp

What's Next?

• Revisit PvP itemization, including arena vs. battleground rewards

• Queue from anywhere

• Competitive battlegrounds or guild battlegrounds (“TBD”)

• Experience gain in battlegrounds

Nethaera has posted a nice quick, but detailed, F.A.Q. on Death Knight creation covering what realms you'll be able to create a Death Knight on, what the requirments are to create one and much more:

Q. What races can be a death knight?
A. Every race has the availability of being a death knight.

Q. Who is eligible to create a death knight?
A. Players who have at least one level 55 character on a realm may create a death knight on that realm.

Q. What if I have a level 55 character on one realm but want to create a death knight on another realm to play with friends?
A. At the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, you will only be able to create a death knight on the same realm where you have an existing level 55 or higher character. In the future, we plan to allow the creation of a death knight on any realm (provided you have at least one level 55+ character).

Q. Can I create a death knight on one realm and transfer it to another realm?
A. Yes, you will be able to transfer a death knight, using either a free character move or a paid character transfer. Normal fees still apply.

Q. Can I create a death knight on one account and transfer it to a new account?
A. Death knights can be transferred with the same fees and restrictions as any other character.

Q. If I move a death knight to another realm now, can I get a refund later when the option to create a death knight anywhere is available?
A. We will not be giving refunds to players who have relocated a death knight to another realm prior to the open creation point for all realms.

Q. Can I create a death knight on the opposite faction?
A. You will be able to create a death knight on the opposite faction provided that it is on a PvE realm. The standard restrictions for character creation apply for PvP realms.

Q. Is there a limit on how many death knights I can create?
A. You will only be able to have one death knight per realm at any one time. Should you delete a death knight, you will still be able to create a new one.

Source: World of WarCraft Forums

Bornakk has posted what was reported by MMO-Champion on Wednesday and Blizzard will be tuning all Burning Crusade raids with the upcoming content patch. This includes all outdoor raids and all raids from Karazhan to Sunwell Plateau.

MMO-Champion is reporting that the latest build of 3.0.2 has dropped the HP of most (if not all) trash and bosses in TBC raid instances. In general it looks to be around a 30% decrease. The reasoning for this nerf is fairly simple as there are massive changes to all the classes in the new patch and a big change to the way buffs and debuffs work in raids. Be sure to check out MMO-Champion for the full details but here are some hard numbers to take a look at:

The Sunwell Plateau

Note that this has not been officially confirmed yet, we will let you know when it is!

Source: MMO-Champion