A skilled Death Knight player claimed Shadowmourne earlier today, becoming the first player to complete the difficult and lengthy quest line to rebuild the legendary weapon. Considering it's one of the toughest items to get in the game, it's only natural that its stats be absolutely insane, increasing strength by 228 and critical strike by 114, among other things. Definitely something to drool over.

Riding on the coattails of updated 3.3.3 notes, Blizzard gave some details today about their plans for future content additions, including quests designed to ease players into Cataclysm's storyline.

Patch 3.9, according to the post, will contain the quest line that will neatly set everything in motion for Cataclysm's introduction. In a way, that gives us a timeframe; given the rate at which Blizzard has been deploying the 3.x patches, we'll be seeing this content relatively soon!

 The actual story in this prologue has actually been mostly uncovered already, thanks to the surprisingly large amount of data relating to the new quests in 3.3.3's PTR files. The name of the Alliance story arc is Operation Gnomeregan, an attempt to reclaim the Gnome capital. Meanwhile, the Horde will have a quest line called Operation Echo Isles, a similar struggle involving the Troll territory. For those curious about the voice content that's been discovered so far, spoilers can be found here and here. 

3.9 may seem like a while away, but given the fact that most of the actual meat of it exists already, we shouldn't have too long to wait. We'll keep you up to date with all of the latest Cataclysm news as it comes.

Patch 3.3.3 brings a host of UI and under-the-hood game changes, but the biggest news is what it does to the current Battlegrounds system.

"The amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill has been increased by 100% for characters of all levels. This change will effectively double the amount of Honor received from Honorable Kills, or for completing Battleground and Wintergrasp objectives; however, the amount of experience gained from completing Battleground objectives and the amount of Honor rewarded for completing each Wintergrasp quest remain unchanged."

Honor will become more of an emphasis for taking part in PvP, outweighing experience points.

"

• The Random Battleground option can be found in the Battleground tab of the PvP frame and is only available for level 80 characters at this time.
  
• If this option is selected, players may not queue for specific Battlegrounds and a random Battleground simultaneously.
  
• Similar to the Random Dungeon system, players will not know for which Battleground they are chosen when selected from the queue until they zone into the Battleground.
  
• The Random Battleground option will only allow a group size of 5 players to queue together.
  
• Bonus rewards will be offered for choosing the Random Battleground option.[ul]
  
• Winning a Battleground using the Random Battleground option for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
  
• Winning additional Battlegrounds using the Random Battleground option after the first random win will award players with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
  
• Losing a Battleground using the Random Battleground option will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency."

The UI system is getting an overhaul similar to the way Dungeon Finder works now. Thank goodness! The ability to queue for a PvP round will make the system much more accessible, and the rewards seem quite nice. Limiting groups to 5 or less should keep the system from deviating from randomly assorted battles, or worse - griefers.

"

• Players with existing Marks of Honor can still turn them in to their respective faction's quest givers, including individual marks for those who may have more marks for one Battleground than another.
  
• Items which previously required Marks of Honor will have their costs adjusted to remove these requirements."

If you remember, Marks of Honor are being chucked as a form of currency, although that won't stop you from turning in the ones you have when the patch goes live. Good riddance, though. The new system will be much less confusing.

We'll let you know when 3.3.3 goes live - hopefully in the next week or two. For the full rundown on the current PTR patch notes, check out Blizzard's official posting. 

PC Gamer UK's special April issue - the MMO issue - is about to hit shelves in England, and apparently has a plethora of info on World of Warcraft's next expansion, Cataclysm. While not officially endorsed by Blizzard, the article should at least contain some good detective work that may at least bring some new speculation forth.

We'll get our hands on a copy and give you details as soon as we can!

See, we told you! It's nearly the end of the week, and patch 3.3.3 is still languishing in PTR purgatory, waiting to be perfected before being pushed live sometime soon (hopefully). There's a reason this update isn't live, though, because changes are still being made to the effects 3.3.3 will bring.

The official test patch notes for 3.3.3 have been updated here, and this time, it seems the highlights are a few move updates - namely, a whopping 10% damage nerf for Druid move Starfall. The other interesting tidbit is a change to Warrior staple move Thunderclap, which now counts as a ranged attack that does double damage on crits, instead of 1.5x. 

After giving us a rundown of the new Mastery system planned for Cataclysm, World of Warcraft developers answered a few burning questions that players had asked. Naturally, most people seem to be worried about what this means for hybrid classes.

"1. 28/28/20 spec. Does mastery on gear affect both highest trees or give no benefit at all?
Mastery on gear gives you one bonus. That bonus is the third passive (the unique one) in the tree in which you’ve spent the most points. In the examples we gave, those are Absorption, Radiance and Runic Power generation."

As they've said before, Mastery bonuses on gear won't be retroactive on current level 80 gear, except type bonuses. So, we'll assume this is for level 80+ gear.

"2. How are ferals and Dks as tanks working with mastery system in place? Are they to care about it for threat or do they have separate bonuses.
Ferals will have passive bonuses that say Cat: melee damage done, Bear: damage reduction. For death knights we have a different plan in mind that we’re not quite ready to discuss. DKs are undergoing some slight changes so they aren’t so GCD constrained and are less limited by rune cooldowns."

It has been noted that the details of Mastery so far seem to neglect Death Knights somewhat; or at least, it doesn't seem to mesh quite properly with their intricate tanking structure. Cataclysm Death Knights are going to be "less limited by rune cooldowns"? Interesting.

"3. How are the non-pure classes going to be balanced against those with a full 76 point passive benefit? Balance, enhancement(not so much), shadow, feral, ele, resto, holy and Ret all have this issue.
Assume you only get the passive bonuses for the tree in which you’ve spent the most points, and there is a ceiling per tree (which could be something like 51-55 talent points). If you spend more points than that in a tree you still get the benefits of the talent. If you spend points in another tree, you are benefiting from those talents instead. Unless you try to make say a 40 / 36 / 0 build, you shouldn’t be losing passive bonuses. If you turn level 10 and spend 1 point in Discipline, you are now a Disc priest. You receive the Disc talent tree passive bonuses and mastery rating on gear benefits your Disc passive bonus (Absorption). If you reach level 85 and have 70 points in Disc and 6 in Holy, you are still a Disc priest and the same rules apply. If you change your build to 51 Disc / 20 Holy / 5 Shadow, you are still a Disc priest."

"4. Hybrids who use spells not improved by their spec on occasion such as heals or the extra lava burst are feeling that their non-specced spells are going to be extremely weak as compared to now.
They are weak now and the intent is to keep them that way. We aren’t trying to nerf them any more than they are today. If we want to make sure Resto shaman can do big Lava Bursts, we’ll give them a talent or something to make that happen. We don’t want Resto shaman to Lava Burst anywhere on the scale of an Elemental shaman. Again, how they perform today is pretty much the target for where we want to end up."

Ah, the big questions. Since Mastery grants bonuses for staying within your class's natural abilities, many are worried that it will suck the diversity out of the game. Blizzard's response seems to indicate that varied classes are still going to be useful, but ultimately, they WILL be weaker - but, in their view, it's not that big of a change. The last part, however, makes it seem like they're willing to tinker with the balance a little. We'll keep you up to date on the rest of Cataclysm's changes as they come!

While the patch itself probably won't go live just yet, the initial download for 3.3.3 is now showing up on the Blizzard launcher. We're one step closer to 3.3.3, folks!

Cataclysm's new statistic, Mastery, got a bit of a reveal today. After teasing the new gameplay mechanic a few days ago, Blizzard has outlined some of the changes Cataclysm will bring to the game in greater detail.

"Here’s how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you’ll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree -- meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear." Source

Blizzard had mentioned before that the goal of Mastery was to reward players for performing their class roles. Basically, this system means that the talent tree is now even more important as far as developing your character goes - staying on a certain path will net better bonuses, and going for a jack-of-all-trades build will hinder players as far as extra stats go.

The question is, will this promote diversity, or will it suck the fun out of character building? Hopefully the former. The trees are already wide enough that bonuses shouldn't end up too rigid - this isn't Borderlands, after all. Naturally, though, some are worried that this change will end up shoehorning players into the "best" tree for their class.

Another interesting tidbit - the Mastery bonus for gear that Blizzard mentioned last time? As in, promoting the use of your specific class gear? Currently, there are no plans to go back and work it into current level 80 gear. You'll gain a bonus for wearing the right type of armor, but for now, it looks like the more advanced perks will be reserved for Cataclysm's 80+ gear.

 Are you excited for 3.3.5's Ruby Sanctum? Or perhaps just anxious to give 3.3.3's UI and move updates a whirl? It'll have to wait, sadly, because so far the PTR servers for 3.3.3 have been less than successful.

Well, alright, that's a little harsh - better things go wonky on PTR servers than actual realms - but it definitely looks like we'll be waiting a little bit longer for the next patch. So far, 3.3.3 has been undergoing numerous problems and changes on the test realms, with moves being added and removed, and UI tweaks causing issues for testers. 

All should be sorted out soon; and hopefully these changes will make the transition to Cataclysm that much smoother. We'll let you know when 3.3.3 is planned to go live - and if it's sometime this week, we'll be just as surprised as you.

Patch 3.3.5 might be a little ways away, but that doesn't mean Blizzard isn't ready to talk Ruby Sanctum, the new raid that will become available when the update drops.

Be advised: if it matters to you, this post will contain spoilers.

The Story

Assault on Ruby Sanctum chronicles the Black Dragonflight's attack on the Red Dragonflight's Wyrmrest Temple. Led by a fearsome new foe, Twilight dragon Halion, the Black Dragonflight forces will be a formidable set of opponents as they fight to free their master.

While not part of Blizzard's official details from today, intrepid WoW users have discovered the dialog for Ruby Sanctum in the patch data. Keep in mind, this dialog is thus far without context, but for people interested enought to spoil the raid's plot entirely, the voices can be found here.

The Gameplay

While Ruby Sanctum is being pitched as difficult, Blizzard has said that they want The Lich King to remain the toughest boss fight as far as Northrend's content goes. That means Ruby Sanctum won't be quite as hard as 3.3.2's Icecrown update, although Blizzard still promises a good deal of challenge. 

All these details were dropped in a thread dedicated to the raid on Blizzard's official forum. When asked about the kind of loot players could expect,  Zahrym had this to say:

"You're likely to find some random pieces of armor on par with Lich King loot, similar to the items Onyxia dropped while Trial of the Crusader was the top-tier raid. You can also expect to see some more trinkets and things of that nature."

Seems about right, considering the raid's difficulty seems to be shaping up to "on par" as well. According to the same Blizzard poster, the dungeon's lieutenants will drop Emblems of Frost, and leader Halion will be the only real "boss" of the encounter, per se. There will be four mini-boss fights beforehand.

The Point

Considering that Cataclysm is - hopefully - on its way relatively soon, Ruby Sanctum is a boon of extra content for Wrath of the Lich King. While a few players are up in arms about Blizzard releasing new raids instead of focusing all efforts on the expansion, Zahrym and other Blizzard workers are quick to point out that Ruby Sanctum's story - as well as any other content between now and Cataclysm - are important transition pieces between WotLK and Cataclysm.

We'll keep you updated with 3.3.5 info as it comes, as well as strategies for Ruby Sanctum once it goes live. 

Another day, another tweak. A month after the raid became available, the Icecrown dungeon has received a few more minor updates to fix things up a bit. While there's nothing major, there are a few changes to the Lord Marrowgar and Sindragosa raids that will make things a little easier on tanks. We'll make sure to update our guide to reflect these fixes.

The full list of changes can be found here.

World of Warcraft has been out for almost six years now, and graphics technology has improved vastly since release. That's why many users were shocked the other day when, after installing the latest drivers for Nvidia graphics cards, WoW suddenly slowed to a crawl.

While it may have been a minor annoyance that could have been fixed easily, it turns out the problem is a little bigger than a simple mis-optimization. Apparently, in both WoW and many other PC games, the latest Nvidia drivers aren't just causing framerate issues, but also overheating and other damage, thanks to a botched fan control. Oops.

Luckily, Nvidia is aware of the issue, and has posted instructions on how to roll back to working drivers. For WoW players who use Nvidia cards - and, quite possibly other MMO players! - this should be a top priority.

As well as the technical changes we've been seeing on the PTR servers recently, patch 3.3.3 looks to contain some slightly bigger additions to World of Warcraft. As well as a few drastic changes to moves, it appears to contain a couple of new mounts - one of which, dare we say it, looks quite... explosive.

Devoted players have combed over 3.3.3's files and discovered the two mount models - one called Celestial Steed, a horse that appears to be made out of stars. The other model is a rocket, which is apparently a flying mount. The interesting thing about this model is that it has two seats - a flying mount built for two, perhaps? We'll see how it works for sure once 3.3.3 hits. For now, keep up to date with 3.3.2 in our forums!

  The test version of patch 3.3.3 has been updated again today, tweaking a few of the changes the patch makes to a few under-the-hood areas of the game.

"Update: 03.02.2010


PvP

• Honorable Kills: Note on the 100% Honor increase clarified

• Druids: Mangle
  
• Mages: Empowered Fire, Torment of the Weak
  
• Rogues: Serrated Blades
  
• Warriors: Trauma, Improved Revenge

• Glyphs: Glyph of Mangle
  
• Tier-10 Sets: priest healing 4-piece set bonus, shaman Elemental 4-piece set bonus

• Maximum frame rate capacity added"

Nothing major, although the added clarification to the way Honorable Kills work in game is certainly welcome. The move and glyph updates will definitely be interesting come the actual release, however; and if you're wondering about the new "maximum framerate"? It's 200fps. So, if you're running World of Warcraft on a computer that's just too damn good for the game... there's your limit! 

 World of Warcraft players in China are one step closer to getting caught up with the US and Europe.

Despite World of Warcraft's huge popularity in China, publisher NetEase has had trouble getting content in The Burning Crusade approved for Chinese audiences. Some of the images and quests in the first expansion pack for WoW were deemed inappropriate by the General Application of Press and Publication (GAPP) and Ministry of Culture (MoC). For months, a legal battle ensued between the publisher and these parties, eventually resulting in a freeze on NetEase's right to accept new subscriptions for WoW at all. Accounts are finally available again, along with the expansion pack.

The Burning Crusade was actually available for Chinese players back when The9 published the game there. However, once NetEase took over, content had to be reapproved, and The Burning Crusade didn't make the cut. It's worth noting that vanilla WoW has a few slight differences in China, made to appease the GAPP and MoC's strict tendencies; for example, killing another player results in a neat little gravesite, as opposed to a rotting skeleton. At this time, it's unclear whether The Burning Crusade was approved as is, or if similar changes had to be made to get the content through. Either way, let's hope that China can get caught up by the time Cataclysm launches!

Despite the recent hefty Icecrown Citadel update, more content for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is planned before Cataclysm comes out. Responding to player queries, a Blizzard poster said this:

"There's a lot of content in Icecrown Citadel for those who like raids. There are plenty of bosses, a good deal of trash, quite the need for progression, and even random weekly quests which have varying degrees of difficulty. This is aside from the new boss in Vault of Archavon, the weekly raid quests in Dalaran, and the very popular cross-realm Dungeon Finder. We feel these features will bring enjoyment to those who like the PvE side of things for quite some time, allowing the average level 80 player to collect some great gear over time and hopefully have a shot at the Lich King before Cataclysm happens.

With that being said, we do have some additional PvE and PvP content and changes we plan to implement prior to the release of the big Cataclysm patch and subsequent retail release of that third expansion. We'll be discussing these new features in more detail in the coming weeks."

We can infer that this means Cataclysm isn't about to be pushed out the door anytime soon. Fall of the Lich King might be the last major content update between Wrath and Cataclysm, but if Blizzard feels the need to pad out the game's longevity even more, Cataclysm must still be a bit far off. 

Along with their financial update yesterday, Blizzard revealed that World of Warcraft has seen no growth in subscribers since 2008.

Yes, it seems World of Warcraft's userbase peaked this last year at 11.5 million. Coupled with the news that about 70% of players don't make it past level 10, things seem surprisingly less rosy than they ought to for the biggest MMO on the block. Still, it's not all bad; if 70% of players leave after level ten, but the number of users has held steady at 11.5 million, there must be enough new subscribers to fill in the gaps as others leave.

Wrath of the Lich King seemed to do nothing to spike these numbers. However, that's not so odd, considering it was mostly filled with high-level user content. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the upcoming expansion pack, features a load of high-level and newbie content, including two new races. These are things that could cause a spurt of growth for the game again.

It could also be true that the game has just peaked. And, as scary as that may sound, it's really not a bad thing at all. Peaking at nearly 12 million subscribers is an impressive feat, and will ensure the game's longevity, even if it's not picking up as many new players as it used to. Considering WoW has been around since 2004, it's amazing that it's come this far. 

Last night, Blizzard rolled out a few new hotfixes, ammending patch 3.3.2 once again.

Most of the changes are small, but a couple of them are quite interesting. For one, the Titan-Forged Spaulders of Triumph that were supposed to be for druids can now actually be purchased by them, which is nice, and T10 plate armor now has a proper durability rating. Raging Spirits, one of the enemies from the Lich King boss fight, have also been nerfed slightly, taking a health decrease in normal and heroic raids - at least, in the 10 player runs. The full changes are listed below, and in our forum thread dedicated to the latest World of Warcraft patch.

" Source

• Titan-Forged Spaulders of Triumph are purchasable by druids as intended.
• Lovely Charms now stack to 40.
• Any player who has a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit in their bags now has a chance to receive a Lovely Charm when in a group or raid and a group member gets a killing blow as long as they are within a certain range of the kill.
• In all difficulties of the Lich King encounter, players who are tanking raging spirits are no longer valid Harvest Soul targets during phase 3, Vile Spirits in phase 3 now spawn at a greater height, and Vile Spirits in phase 3 will not be spawned as often.
• In the 10 player Lich King encounter, Raging Spirits have had their health decreased in both normal and heroic versions and then fewer Vile Spirirts will be summoned in just the 10 player normal mode.
• Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle should no longer get stuck in the air during her transformation phase.
• The Blue Sack of Gems earned from completing a random heroic Oculus dungeon is no longer tradeable.
• The Tier 10 tanking plate gloves and chest pieces now have their appropriate durability on them."

Activision Blizzard, publisher and developer of World of Warcraft, posted its Q4 2009 earnings report today, beating previous financial estimates.

Although the report bested many of Wall Street's predictions, the company still posted at a $286 million net loss, much more than last year's $72 million. Blizzard reports to have earned 49 cents per share. Activision Blizzard's net revenue was $1.56 billion.

Sales were driven by the wildly successful Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and bolstered by subscription money from World of Warcraft. For 2010, Activision Blizzard is predicting earnings around 70 cents per share.

Discuss in our forums

...Or at least, little baby plush ones. The Blizzard Store will soon release two plush toys, a Gryphon Hatchling and baby Wind Rider.

The toys will each come with a code for an in-game counterpart pet that both Horde and Alliance players can redeem. 

Has anyone having trouble logging in today? What began as a fairly routine bit of server downtime for maintainance has been extended far past what Blizzard originally projected. While the tinkering was originally supposed to be finished around noon today, the time has been extended several times, due to problems being discovered by the technicians. We have no idea what these "problems" actually are at this point, but Blizzard says the next update on the maintainance will be around 6pm.

The official thread for the maintanance is here. We'll keep you updated once Blizzard has a statement.

Hot on the heels of the announcement of new drops for the Lich King boss in Icecrown Citadel, the dungeon is receiving another change after server maintainance this week. Getting wiped on boss runs Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King will no longer result in a lost attempt. Don't expect this to be the last change to the Citadel, either, because according to Blizzard:

"We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids." Source

For now, Heroic raids will still have a limited number of attempts in the Citadel. Our thread dedicated to the Icecrown raids can be found here.

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.

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