All those aspiring Blood Elves and Draenei can now rejoice and finally pick which classes they want to play. Blizzard have updated the Town Hall pages for both races which will be able to select the following classes during character generation:

Blood Elves - Paladin, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Mage, Warlock.
Draenei - Warrior, Paladin, Hunter, Priest, Shaman, Mage.

The full history of each race can be found at these links: Blood Elves, Draenei

There will be an extended maintenance tomorrow, Tuesday, August 1st. We are extending the maintenance for a required ISP maintenance by 2 hours and 15 minutes. This will place us at a maintenance starting time of 2:45 AM PDT, lasting until approximately 11:00 AM PDT.

To view this announcement click here.

MP : A lot of people like to customize their character, the way they look. Is Burning crusade going to add new options like new haircuts for example ?

FP : That’s the sort of things we’re talking about, we’re evaluating, but we don’t have final decisions, final plans as of yet. Certainly something like a barbershop is something that we talked about. A lot of people have indicated that it’s disappointing that everyone feels like the high end raid gear is what everyone needs to wear, and eveyone has the same gear. The items designers will be trying to create gear alternatives that are viable options for players. We don’t have any final decision, but it’s something we’ve been talking about.

What work do you do on the World of Warcraft TCG?

My job is to identify properties that would be a good fit with Upper Deck. I decided that WoW would be a great TCG license, so I convinced internal teams that we could create an amazingly successful game, and then I approached Blizzard and acquired the license.

The next patch for World of Warcraft will include significant new updates to PvP gameplay with two outdoor world PvP objectives. The first of these will see players struggling for control of four towers in the Eastern Plaguelands, whilst the second, based in faraway Silithus, will see the Horde and Alliance racing to collect silithyst, and return it to their faction’s encampment.

Have you ever wondered what to do if your account is hacked? Our brand-new article about compromised accounts gives advice on how to avoid the trauma of logging on to find a once resplendent character, reduced to a cowering and scantily-clad remnant of its former epic-clad glory. Ignore it at your peril!

Blizzards happy to announce the Xfire-sponsored World of Warcraft Summer Movie Contest. Players are being called on to create movies, set in Azeroth, in one of four main categories: Dance, Comedy, Drama, and Two-Minute Short. This is a great way for up-and-coming directors to display their movie-making skills. Over $20,000 worth of prizes will be awarded to the best entries.

The premade copies for this PTR are working a bit differently than they have in the past, and we wanted to clear up the confusion this may be causing for some of you.

Premade copies are currently copying to a random PTR realm, this is done to help balance the load across the PTR realms and allow for a more even distribution of players when testing the new Cross-Realm Battleground feature. Please keep in mind that the displayed character count on the realm selection list may not accurately display the amount of characters you actually have there, and this may require you to log onto both realms to access the characters you have copied.

We have reset the copy limit for all players due to some of the confusion that has surrounded these premade copy changes, and all players now have two additional copies available to them.

Previously you were required to rename the copied character from the website during the transfer procedure. This has been changed, and now all copied characters will be prompted in-game to be renamed upon first use on the PTR.

Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion we have been seeing, and we will be continuing to update this post with any additional information we think may help get people in and playing.

As part of our efforts to eliminate cheating from World of Warcraft, we recently banned approximately 59,000 World of Warcraft accounts in the month of June, and with that removed well over 22 million gold from the total economy across all realms. While we regret having to take such extreme action, these accounts were participating in activities that directly violated World of Warcraft's Terms of Use, including the use of third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such behavior not only negatively impacts the economy of a realm, it diminishes the achievements of those who play legitimately. We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and our players from the harmful effects of cheating.

We'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the community for their assistance in reporting suspicious behavior. Numerous account closures come as the direct result of tips reported to our GMs in-game or emailed to hacks@blizzard.com.

Moving forward, if you suspect that a World of Warcraft player is using an illegal third-party program to farm gold or items, or is otherwise violating our Terms of Use, please report the suspected infraction using one of the methods listed above. All reports will be investigated, and the appropriate action will be taken when warranted

We appreciate your support and wish you the best with your continued adventures in Azeroth!

This is a plea for the engineers of Azeroth to start developing safety parachutes so the people who have these sudden impulses can be safe from injury.

Ok, maybe that's a little overboard, but it has been confirmed that not only can you dismount from you Nether Drake while on land, but you can also successfully dismount while in the air, plummeting to your own immediate death.

From Eyonix, you can read the entire thread here.

Adventurers who determine the hardships of Azeroth are too much to bear have many methods in which they can put an end to their sad and lonely existence. The Burning Crusade will in-fact introduce another method in which such a goal can be accomplished -- and that does involve plummeting from one's winged beast of burden to the hard flat foundation of the Hellfire Peninsula.

GameAmp have updated their world maps section with maps from all five wings of Naxxramas. They contain positions of each boss as well as details of their loot tables.

Click here to take a look GameAmp's map section.

Blizzard need you to test their new World of Warcraft beta forums. Starting Wednesday there will be 24 hours of intense testing, so hop on over and get posting.

We're happy to announce that we'll be ready to begin stress testing the beta version of the new World of Warcraft forums starting tomorrow, Wednesday, July 26 at 2:00 PM PDT. This stress test is scheduled to last approximately 24 hours. To ensure that the stress test is successful, we will be making our regular forums read-only during this 24-hour period. This means players will still be able to visit our standard forums and read what's available, but they will be unable to post there.

Our support teams will also be participating in this stress test, and we’ll be adding technical support, customer service, and test realm forums to the beta forums during this time. Each team will be actively answering questions on these forums for the duration of the test.

So, beginning tomorrow afternoon, please head over, take a look, and make lots of posts! Keep in mind that we'll be testing our new moderation tools as well, and our Forum Code of Conduct will remain in full effect, so please continue to abide by our rules and guidelines when posting.

Like the Roman legion for which they are named, Triarii is an Alliance guild focused upon beating everything that Blizzard develops for World of Warcraft. Created in September 2005 on Thunderhorn-EU, Triarii rose from the collapse of another guild, Fate of Kings. Long term guild master Perfectzor founded Triarii with a few online and real life friends, eventually expanding the guild to its present size of 69 accounts.

“We wanted a name that people would easily memorise” Perfectzor explains, “with only one word so when people mention us they don’t abbreviate it. I’m personally a Roman history lover and together with other members came up with ‘Triarii’ because it was a Roman legion which contained the most experienced after surviving many battles. Like us after Fate of Kings.”

As with many raiding guilds membership is at a premium. “What I look for in a new member is activity and personality. We want fun people in order to continue with the good mood in the guild.”

“When we are recruiting we normally announce it on the realm forums. [Anyone] who wants to apply to us can always use our forum and the respective section (http://triarii.srproducts.co.uk), filling in a template we have.”

To read the entire interview, visit our Guild Interviews page.

You can download and read this issue in PDF format by visiting: www.theartofgaming.com

Please join us on Thursday, August 3rd, for a House of Commons with the developers of EverQuest II at 4 PM Pacific / 7 PM Eastern in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC.

You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client, such as mIRC, ircle, xchat, or whichever you prefer. Connect to irc.stratics.com port 6668 or whichever server is closest to you:

• stratics.frws.com port 6668, USA - Colorado
• irc.glowfish.de port 6668, EU - Germany
• stratics.afraidyet.net 6668, USA - Atlanta
• irc.epaxsys.net port 6668, USA - Colorado

You may also connect through our handy Java link which may be found right here. You must have Java installed to use this which can be downloaded from the Java homepage.

General chat relating to EQ2 will take place before, during, and after the chat in room #everquest2.

Also, we are taking suggestions as to topic and/or developers in attendance!  Please post your suggestions here, but we would really appreciate it if you would highlight it in bold red text (and only suggestions please!) so that we may be able to see it and forward it to the developer team.  Please keep in mind that these are only suggestions, and that the Dev Team may accept or reject them.

We hope to see you there!

So what does all this background mean in terms of gameplay? Simply put: In The Burning Crusade, Alliance players can play as Draenei shamans, while Horde players can play as Blood Elf paladins.

You can read the full Gamespot article at http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154421.html

This has also been confirmed by Eyonix in the official World of Warcraft forums which you can find the thread here

The mighty Tempest Keep was created by the enigmatic naaru: sentient beings of pure energy and the sworn enemies of the Burning Legion.

You can read more about the Tempest Keep by visiting http://wow.warcry.com/content/lore/tempestkeep

We're looking to implement some new emotes, and we want your help! If you want more ways to express yourself in-game, show emotion, or have new ways to taunt your enemies, nows your chance. Please visit the below link to jump over to the Role-Playing forum and /give some emotes.

https://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-role-playing&t=437195

Comic-Con 2006 is currently underway at the San Diego Convention Center from now through July 23. Blizzard is on hand at this year's convention, where show-goers can go hands-on with World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Attendees will also receive a 14-day trial of World of Warcraft with paid admission. Visit us in booth #4615, on July 21-23 from 2-3 PM PDT, where Blizzard artists will be signing free World of Warcraft posters, while supplies last!

We have opened a further 12 realms for the Paid Character Transfer service. This service allows characters to be transferred to other realms, or between accounts with the same original registered owner. Take a look at our Paid Character Transfer F.A.Q to learn more about this service. You can currently transfer characters from the following realms:

Aggramar, Arathor, Argent Dawn, Azshara, Blackhand, Blackrock, Die Silberne Hand, Draenor, Earthen Ring, Frostmane, Grim Batol, Hyjal, Kirin Tor, Skullcrusher, Spinebreaker and Terenas.
To start transferring your characters, just login to the Account Management section and click the Paid Character Transfer button. Please note that the Paid Character Transfer service may be unavailable during the scheduled weekly maintenance.

Stratics IRC is pleased to announce a new channel available to our users - #Stratics-Gaming! Interested in discussinga new game, comparing two games, letting people know all about your favorite game? #Stratics-Gaming is the place for you.

You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client, such as mIRC,Ircle, XChat, or whichever you prefer. Connect to irc.stratics.com port 6668 or whichever server is closest to you:

stratics.frws.com port 6668, USA - Colorado
irc.glowfish.de port 6668, EU - Germany
stratics.afraidyet.net 6668, USA - Texas
irc.epaxsys.net port 6668, USA - Colorado

You may also connect through our handy Java link which may be found right here.You must have Sun Java installed to use this which can be downloaded from the Sun Java homepage.

In addition to our new #Stratics-Gaming channel we also have game specific channels such as #Ultima-Online and #WorldofWarcraft. If you have any questionsonce you've joined feel free to join #IRC-Help and we will be happy to assist you!

Writing the introductory article for a website is a daunting prospect. It’s your responsibility to set the tone for everything that will follow—to whet the readers’ appetites so that they’ll want to come back to the site every day, hungry for more. It’s even more intimidating when the website is for a game whose launch is highly anticipated, and you know every word is going to be scrutinized and every implication—intentional or not—quoted and dissected for its underlying meaning. If you succeed, you can gain a readership for the life of your site, but if you fail, you can turn off potential readers forever. And then there’s the little issue of making the game, too.Since it’s introductions we’re after, let me start at the beginning. Hello, my name is Brian Kibler, and I’m a WoWaholic. The day WoW came out, I was visiting my mother in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. That morning, she was at work, and I was without a car, so I walked to the nearest Wal-Mart and back to pick up my copy of World of Warcraft as soon as it was on sale. In the winter. In New Hampshire. Uphill both ways. I nearly died of hypothermia in the process, but once I got back and started installing the game, the warm glow of the Dark Portal washed over me and made everything okay.

Blizzard have released details of the Nether Drake, a Draconic mount that can be used to explore the distant realm of Outland from both the ground and air.

One of the most exciting new features of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will be the introduction of a new kind of mount that will provide players with unprecedented freedom to explore the world of Outland from an entirely new perspective. After reaching level 70, players will eventually be able to obtain a flying mount for their characters.

Click here to read all about Nether Drake.

Upper Deck Entertainment has opened the website for their forthcoming Trading Card Game based on World of Warcraft. Although not much is know at the moment, the website contains interviews with artists and developers. Of interest to WoW players is this from lead developer Brian Kibler:

...there are going to be some very cool items in the MMO that you’ll only be able to get through special loot cards from the TCG. I’ve been involved in all of the meetings about them, and I’m already looking forward to getting my hands on them for my characters. For those of you who are afraid of the eBay effect, don’t worry—all items from the loot cards will be cosmetic and won’t have any game function (outside of making you the envy of your entire server). On top of the loot cards in some packs, every pack will contain a resource card. These resource cards will have codes you can enter online, and once you get enough resources, you’ll be able to spend them to buy items from our online store, including even more unique cosmetic items for your character in-game.

The official World of Warcraft TCG website can be found here.

The European Test Realms are now also live and available for testing.

Handy links for the EU Test Realms: Public Test Realm Page, Test Realm Patch Notes 1.12.

It wasn't long ago that patch 1.11 was released and already we're into the testing stage of 1.12! Those wanting to checkout the rogue review or cross-realm PvP should head over to the the public test realm.

The public test realms are live! Players can now try out some of the changes and additions coming in World of Warcraft's latest content patch: Drums of War. The highlights of this patch include cross-realm battlegrounds -- where for the first time in the history of World of Warcraft, you will be able to face off against players from other realms in the battlegrounds -- rogue talent improvements, and world player-vs.-players objectives in Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands. Read the Drums of War test realm patch notes to learn more.

Handy links for the test patch are here: Cross-Realm Battlegrounds, Public Test Realm Page, Test Realm Patch Notes 1.12.

New details have emerged on Blizzard's plans for World PvP in World of Warcraft, the objective-based land battle feature that should form part of the next major update (1.12) for the MMORPG.

According to a report on IGN, initially the World PvP stuff will be locked to Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands zones in the game world. Due to the high level nature of those zones, it means that the new PvP feature is focussed on confrontations between high level characters (levels 55 to 60 mentioned), but we're hoping that, should it all prove successful, Blizzard will introduce the objective-based land battles into lower-level zones.

THQ CEO Brian Farrell has explained why the publisher has no plans to release an online RPG in the near future. It seems World of Warcraft is too dominant.

"We're looking at it very closely, but I want to find the right opportunity," Farrell told investors. "I think what you will not see THQ do is come out with another fantasy-type game. The other thing we're thinking is these things tend to have a window."

"Right now that product is World of Warcraft, so the idea would be to time something for when that product is going to be on its downward slope. To come out with something competitive now I think would be misguided for anyone, including THQ."

BLIZZARD FINALLY STARTED to listen to the hearts and minds of WoW players, who were enduring all the problems and all game imbalances. Last patch brought the world of Necropolis, an instance intended for only best equipped guilds with people who live inside the game.
However, the patch induced a lot of pain to gamers on servers with lower population or new servers, because they had to fight same virtual opponents as better equipped people on older servers. This didn't pose a problem until the enemies starting to spread and killing all the non-playing characters in the region of their attack, virtually stopping players from advancing in the game. This was solved with latest weekly update, which brought some changes into the game itself. The boring enemies in front of main towns are now finally gone, and players can focus on getting their act together before Patch 1.12 kicks in.

It's no secret that an MMO must continue to evolve and add content to keep people coming back, and World of Warcraft is no different. Since its launch in November 2004, we've seen the introduction of several large dungeons, zones, and seasonal celebrations, not to mention new loot, crafting recipes, and Battlegrounds, the popular PvP arenas that Blizzard will be enhancing with cross-realm support in the upcoming 1.12 patch (which, interestingly, will be available on the Public Test Realm ahead of the patch's final release). If you're a player who regularly waits an hour or more for a PvP match that may only last ten minutes, cross-server Battleground should bring some much-needed relief from the waiting game, as well as making Alterac Valley a viable option for people who are playing on servers not in their time zone.

Drysc has released some updated information on the upcoming Rogue review.

We have been continuing to work on the review since the 'First Glimpse' post, the talent calculator unveiling, and we have been building upon those initial changes. After our own discussions and testing, as well as reviewing the player feedback we have received, we are planning to make the below additional changes to the rogue talents for patch 1.12.

Murder has been changed to increase damage caused against Humanoid, Giant, Beast, and Dragonkin by 1%/2%.

Remorseless Attacks has been reduced to 2 ranks, with the new effectiveness being 20% and 40%.

Endurance has been changed to reduce the cooldown of your Sprint and Evasion abilities by 45 sec/1.5 min. It no longer increases the duration of Evasion.

Weapon Expertise will now increases your skill with Fist, Dagger, and Sword weapons. It will no longer affect Maces, and this change is being followed up by

Mace Specialization will now also add 1-5 weapon skill with Maces, in addition to the stun effect the talent already provides.

Adrenaline Rush now has a reduced cooldown of 5 min.

Elusiveness has been reduced to a 2 point talent and now reduces the cooldown of Vanish and Blind by 45 sec/1.5 min. It no longer reduces the cooldown for Evasion.

Opportunity is being moved to a tier 1 talent, swapping places with Camouflage.

Ghostly Strike has been reverted back to the previous 125% weapon damage, but retains its new Energy cost of 40.

Setup will now also provide combo points if you fully resist an attackers spell.

Improved Rupture, Improved Cheap Shot, and Improved Garrote have been removed.

New talent 'Serrated Blades' is a tier 4 talent in the Subtlety tree, causes your attacks to ignore X of your targets Armor, and increases the damage dealt by your Rupture ability. The amount of Armor reduced increases with your level. At level 60, the ranks will reduce target Armor by 100/200/300 respectively.

New talent 'Dirty Deeds' replaces the Improved Cheap Shot talent, reducing the Energy cost of both the Cheap Shot and Garrote abilities by 10/20.

Garrote, Eviscerate, and Rupture now all scale with Attack Power. The previously announced Eviscerate book will still be made available in an undisclosed location. While we had always planned to scale these abilites at a point in the future, we felt that the rank upgrade for Eviscerate and damage increase for Garotte would provide a well needed boost in the current game and carry these abilities until the scaling mechanic was implemented. Our ultimate goal to scale the abilities in a future update was decided to be moved ahead, and the current plan is to implement scaling for these abilities in 1.12, instead of in a later update.

Again, please keep in mind that any of the above changes are subject to revision, reversal, or removal. We'll be continuing to evaluate these changes, and the review as a whole. Neither the talent calculator, nor these forum posts should be considered final word on the review.

Click here for the full post and here for the updated talent calculator.

Everyone loves Trolls! Especially Blizzard as they've added the final chapter to their Troll Compendium.

We have just added three more pages to the Troll Compendium. Learn more about the sand trolls and their tribe, the Sandfury, as well as the dark trolls and a gathering of trolls under Zanzil the Outcast. Uncover the story of the Zandalar tribe, the earliest troll tribe.

Click here to learn about Troll culture.

Good news for the roleplayers out there. Blizzard have opened two new RP realms.

We are pleased to announce the opening of two new realms: The Venture Co, which is a RP-PvP realm, and Sentinels, which is a new RP realm. These new realms will provide a great place for new and old players alike to begin fresh adventures within the world of Azeroth. Enjoy!

What Content Editors do is basically help add content to the website. This could be writing guides, updating old sections, adding new information on new features Blizzard adds to World of Warcraft. You help players understand how to play the game!

If you have a knack for writing an you love to gather information feel free to submit an application to us right here.

HTML knowledge, while not required, would be a great plus.

Stratics is a volunteer based community and as such, all the above are non-paid positions. Legal issues require you to be a minimum of 18 years old to apply.

We are happy to announce the launch of the Paid Character Transfer service for World of Warcraft in Europe. This service allows characters to be transferred to other realms, or between accounts with the same original registered owner. Take a look at our Paid Character Transfer FAQ(http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/faq/paidcharactertransfer.html) to learn more about this new service.
The initial launch of the Paid Character Transfer service will only allow transfers between a limited set of realms. You can now transfer characters from the following realms:

Azshara

Grim Batol

Kirin Tor

Spinebreaker

We'll gradually scale up the list of realms to accommodate more players as quickly as possible. To start transferring your characters, just login to the Account Management section(http://www.wow-europe.com/account) and click the Paid Character Transfer button. Please note that the Paid Character Transfer service may be unavailable during the scheduled weekly maintenance.

A post was made in the Realm Status forum, however, I wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that we will be issuing rolling restarts for all realms beginning at 5:00 AM PDT, Wednesday July 12. This is being done in order to address a minor technical issue. We only anticipate each realm to be impacted for approximately 15 minutes.

We apologize for the interruption.

To view this comment, click here.

General

• Fixed an issue where players were still being disconnected in 1.11.0 when trying to log back in within 20 seconds of a client crash.
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to place special bags inside one another.
• Applied a fix where players reported that they are sometimes unable to resurrect at their corpse.
• Fixed a graphical error where when viewing a character from a second computer, a player who had his weapons sheathed did not appear to have any weapons on his side or back.
• Fixed an issue where a player received a fatigue bar after a disconnection occurred during a flight path over deep water.
• The Looking For Group channel is now defaulted off. Players will need to join the channel to access it. (/join LFG)
• Fixed an issue where temporary weapon enhancements such as poisons would not persist after zoning or logging.

Druids

• The tool tip for the talent Omen of Clarity now reflects its new duration of 10 minutes.
• Fixed an issue where players with the Heart of the Wild talent were losing health each time they shifted to Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.
• Fixed an issue where players with the Furor talent were not staying in combat mode when shifting to bear form and were losing the extra rage generated.

Hunters

• Players are no longer able to animate emotes while using Feign Death.

Paladins

• Seal of Righteousness will now benefit properly from wizard oil and other effects which give bonus damage against specific creature types.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes casting a spell immediately after a swing would prevent Seal of Command from triggering.

Priests

• Fixed an error where Priests in Spirit of Redemption form did not benefit from plus to healing items.
• Touch of Weakness will now work again when you have Power Word:Shield active on yourself.

Visit our Patch Notes forum to see all the fixes for Patch 1.11.2

All realms will be offline for scheduled maintenance

Date: July 11th 2006

Time: 3:00am - 11:00am PDT

Detail: Patch 1.11.2

For more information, please check our realm status page.

Thank you,
Blizzard Entertainment

Good news for the sneaky types, Blizzard have released a preview of the forthcoming Rogue talent changes. As always everything is subject to change and this may not be it's final form.

Click here for the updated talent calculator.

Over at 3D Downloads our newest feature is up with mirrors of eight more hand-picked, great fan-made World of Warcraft videos.

LINK

Just a quick reminder that WoW Stratics will be accepting questions up until July 18^th. At that time we will pick ten and send them to the developers.

If you would like to submit your question, you can do so here.

Blizzard have updated their Burning Crusade page with a Jewelcrafting preview.

Jewelcrafters learn the art of creating beautiful jewelry and trinkets from metals and rare gems. By processing the raw ore mined from the various deposits and mineral veins, jewelcrafters can extract gems from the ore which they can then use for their craft.

Click here to read the full article.

Introducing... Stratics Links!

Welcome to Stratics Links, your new online gaming informational resource provided by the Stratics Network!

A compilation of websites all in one place, maintained and supported by our Stratics Staff, and you - our community! You can provide new links, share information on existing links, provide feedback, and help us maintain this fantastic resource of MMORPG-related sites that are available to you!

Now, you can share, bookmark, rate, and submit links! Yes... you can submit links to be added to the database! You can create folders to manage your bookmarks! You can sort those bookmarks based on preferences you set! There is so much customization to the functionality... it's fantastic to finally be able to keep all of your favorites in one location, and share them with all of your friends!

To get started, just go to Stratics Links, and on the left-hand menu you'll see "Register". Once you have registered, when you log in you can quickly access your bookmarked links by clicking on "My Bookmarks" in the left menu.

This service is free to all of our Stratics users, so don't delay! We look forward to seeing your favorite links and sharing ours with you!

Your Stratics Network Staff

A few weeks ago Blizzard posted on their site about the World ofWarcraft boardgame. Being as how we happen to enjoy WoW we thought itmight be nice to give the game a shot so we gave the folks over atFantasy Flight Games a call. They sent us a copy of World of WarcraftThe Board Game and we decided to give it a shot ...

Like any planned event, we started late, but we were prettyexcited. Fantasy Flight Games was kind enough to send us a review copyof their World of Warcraft boardgame, and if there's anything we love asmuch as computer games, it's boardgames.

Right about now you're probably wondering what a World ofWarcraft boardgame would be like. Is it a rebranded Monopoly? Does itplay like Risk? You'd probably be surprised. Here's the concept: Twoteams of 2-3 characters, balanced evenly between Horde and Alliance,spend 30 rounds exploring Lordaeron, completing quests, gaining levels,training skills, gathering equipment, and generally preparing for alarge battle. There are two ways to win - either one team manages tokill the overlord, essentially a boss mob, or there is a final PvPbattle to determine the winner.

Before we dig into the gameplay though, let's start at thebeginning. It all started at 9:30 pm, on Friday...

Article Link: http://wow.warcry.com/content/misc/boardgame (There are pictures too!)

A very special thanks to Fantasy Flight Games http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ for giving us the chance to play.

WoWguru.com (An MMO guru Network site) is pleased to announce its first contest sponsored by Zboard. the first place prize for best Top 10 List is a Zboard gaming keyboard and WoW limited edition keyset. The contest is open to everybody.

To be eligible to win, we want to see your best Top 10 List of things that have to do with WoW. Let us see your originality and creativity as you come up with you own Top 10 List. This could include: Top 10 rumors, Top 10 ways to pay for your WoW subscription, Top 10 things to do when the servers are down for maintenance, anything you can think to list in a humorous or true way. You will need to submit your top ten list as well as your email address, full name, and WoWguru.com forum account name to Contest@wowguru.com.

To see full details please visit http://www.wowguru.com/contest/Contest.php

Drysc has slowly been revealing details of the Rogue Talent update coming in update 1.12. Here are some key highlights:

Eviscerate Damage.

The specific thought process for Eviscerate came after a lot of testing the ability and how far it could be scaled respective to the damage output. Theoretically it could be scaled and only provide rogues at the very top end with a marginal improvement, meanwhile everyone else is left with a less poweful ability.

In the end, giving a base increase is going to end up adding more damage than it would have if we scaled the ability, and thus the change was made. Specific work and thought was put into attempting to scale the abilities, but the end product was not enough of an improvement just so it could be said that it scales

New Eviscerate Rank.

Eviscerate is being improved by a new book, allowing a new rank and a general base-damage increase.

Garotte Damage.

Garotte is receiving a damage boost. While final numbers are still unavailable, we are shooting for an approximate 50% damage increase.

Vanish.

It will only apply to abilities that are specifically used to allow the caster to remain aware of the target. I'm only aware of Hunter's Mark and Mind Vision being applicable to the requirement, but there may be more. Any damaging spells would not fall into this category.

I have seen a few posts, generally from people that are playing a hunter, exclaim that Hunter's Mark specifically states it is to be used to keep track of targets restealthing. This is absolutely true; however, Vanish is a separate ability from Stealth and vanishing is not synonymous with stealthing regardless of the end result.

Faerie Fire and Vanish.

...just know that vanish is not going to remove Faerie Fire.

Rupture.

Rupture was found to be performing at-par to where we want it to be and will not be changed. While there was certainly some intention initially (and why it was included in my post) to improve or change how it functioned, after careful study it has been decided to not change the Rupture ability. I know that may be a dissapointment, but after careful study, no change was necessary.

Expose Armour with Sunder.

Expose Armor will not stack with Sunder Armor in 1.12.

The changes to make it perform as a percentage is still intended, and it should now give a pretty nice boost against high-armor targets versus the current Expose Armor functionality.

As always, all these are subject to change before the update goes live.

The guys at Blizzard have completed the new look of their US and European websites having given them a new shiny makeover.

The new main page design is now officially online! The official World of Warcraft community website has undergone a complete redesign to improve both accessibility and user friendliness. The main page has been restructured as well, making it much easier to keep track of the most recent news, events, and updates to the game.

Head over to the official sites to take a look.

The thread started off as a simple question...

I got my warrior to sixty a few months ago and have really enjoyed pvp'ing with him. I've pretty much learned what to do against each class that will give me the best chance to live. A constant point of frustration I have, however, is fighting classes that pop absorbtion shields (Preists, Mages, any class that uses the BG's trinket). Not only do they absorb the damage I do but I dont gain any rage from hitting them so I have even more trouble getting the shield down.

Example: A priest throws up PW:Shield and I Mortal Strike them, leaving me with no rage left. A few auto attacks later, when I normally should have enough rage for another MS, I finally manage to get the shield down... But I have no rage to use any abilities.

Why cant we generate rage against absorption spells? We're still doing melee damage (unlike against an invulnerability shield) but its just not taking off the HP. Normal rage generation should continue!

Personally if you think about "rage" it should piss a warrior off more when someone pops a shield so we should get angrier and generate more rage!

With a mildly amusing answer from Tseric:

Think of it as a soothing mist eminating from the shield. Like one of those pretentious, little spray bottles of mineral water that my girlfriend douses herself with on hot days.

You're dealing damage but you aren't doing damage. Part of rage is the smell of blood and if there's no blood, there's no rage.

In which case several forum folks got a little ticked at this answer and said a few things that weren't exactly nice, so Tseric posted this:

Look at all the touchy people this morning.

Somehow, the 'popping enrage' schtick should probably be directed at someone other than me.

Fine, you want a serious answer that deals with class balance in a respectful and professional manner? You don't wanna kid around?

We're not going to give you rage generation every time you swing your damn weapon. You aren't going to generate rage just for waking up in the morning. You aren't going to generate rage just because you tab-targetted somebody.

There are situations in which damage will not equal rage. One of these situations is when the damage is absorbed. Yes, it is a counter for casters with shields. Not the biggest obstacle in the world. I'm sure you can overcome.

Or, you could go ahead and make this the flavor of the day and tell everyone that no rage from damage absorption is gimping your class. The humanity. How do you guys manage to compete at all?

I dunno about you folks, but I tend to have a lot of rage when I wake up in the morning... just too bad I take it all out on the stupid alarm clock...

To learn more about Paid Character Transfer, please visit the Paid Character Transfer FAQ.

With Azeroth becoming increasingly overcrowded, Blizzard is offering UK and European World of Warcraft players the chance to jump to potentially greener pastures. For the first time, players can move individual characters between selected European realms for £14.99 (or 19.99 euros) per character. Players in the US received the option to transfer realms last week. The realms initially involved in the "paid character transfer" are Altar of Storms, Argent Dawn, Arthas, Dalaran, Demon Soul, Illidan, Magtheridon, Stormrage, Spirestone, Turalyon, Warsong, and Zul'jin. Limitations apply--players must have reached level 10 in order to transfer, and they are prevented from moving back to the same realm within a six-month period

Update (05/07 18:00):
The cause of this block has been identified to be an issue with a certain backbone (part of Europe’s internet infrastructure). Due to the complex and intricate nature of this particular issue, it took some time to be able to narrow down and eventually pinpoint the cause. We have come significantly closer to a technical solution and are assured by the involved ISP that they are working to correct this.

As of now and continuing over the course of this evening players should find themselves able to log in with their beloved characters once again

In the major cities there are kegs full of mead and mugs to fill. Revelers are out and about and the cities seem to be decorated a bit.

While visiting Booty Bay, all of the Bruisers are drunk and passed out cold. While talking to the revelers in town, a fireworks display will be happening all night starting at 6 PM (I'm assuming that's server time).

If you find anymore interesting news on the celebration, feel free to email me or post your findings in our forums. Hope everyone celebrating today has a safe and fun Independence Day!

Another Warcraft Weekly has been posted detailing the hot posts from the last week.

I am a bit late in opening up our Q&A for the month of July. So because of this the closing date for your questions will be extended until July 18^th.

So here it is again, your chance to send us what YOU would like to ask the WoW Developers!

You can submit your question here, we will pick the best ten and forward them on to the WoW Developers!

Make sure you check back often to see if your question was sent!

Drysc has posted a glimpse at the upcoming Rogue review scheduled for update 1.12.

The review is well underway and we wanted to share a sort of first glimpse into the changes being made for the rogue talent review. Keep in mind that these changes are not complete or final, and the below information is likely to alter as we move into our testing phases. While not everything is listed, the below list encompasses the majority of changes being made in the review.

For the full post click here.