Posted on November 24th, 2009 by admin
Now this is interesting. Our old friend Jesta, who made the EpicAdvice.com site not so long ago, is working on a new project at EpicPlan.com, and while it’s still hidden away in pre-alpha, you can see what they’re up to in this thread on EA. It’s a slideshow/diagramming web app, basically — you can take maps of the game’s instances, lay out icons and symbols on them as you wish, and then animate and caption boss fights and encounters. The end result is a very clear way to show off different raid strategies, and we’re told the slideshows are embeddable on other sites as well (you may even see some here eventually on WoW.com).
Unfortunately, they’re only taking signups for the beta of the service right now, and while you can watch a show in action on the technology demo, you can’t make your own quite yet. But it seems like a very impressive tool for raidleaders, both to share plans with the public and players seeking help, as well as your own raid members. It’ll be great to be able to make a quick and easy visual display of where to stand and what to do during boss fights and instance encounters.
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on November 16th, 2009 by admin
During my time in the upcoming patch 3.3 raid instance Icecrown the other day, I managed to notice something peculiar at the top of the screen. I didn’t recall seeing this before anywhere else.
You know how in Trial of the Grand Crusader, you only get 50 attempts before the instance is shut down for your raid group? It seems like a similar mechanic is being implemented in here for Icecrown. When I was in it, I noticed we had 3000 of 3000 attempts remaining. I don’t think this is the final number. Remember, this is on a test server so the chances are probable that it’s just a placeholder figure.
Some ideas
150 – 200 attempts: In Trial of the Grand Crusader, we had 50 attempts to use against 5 bosses. Assuming it’s going to be a similar ratio of attempts to bosses, I think we’ll see a range between 150 – 200 attempts.
Heroic mode only: We saw this counter on normal mode. But could it just be for the heroic enabled bosses that count towards the meter? Either that, or it could be that any boss attempts on normal or heroic will count toward it.
Rewards and achievements: Lastly, I suspect we’ll see some possible item rewards and
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on November 9th, 2009 by admin
Pop quiz, hotshots. This picture is:
A view into the secret tunnels hidden below the major cities that allow the Horde to sneak in unseen and kill all the Alliance faction leaders.
How Garrosh Hellscream looks at the world.
A poorly designed kaleidoscope.
The result of Tsiva of <Insurrection> on The Sentinels suffering from an acute graphics card meltdown in Dalaran.
Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val’kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on November 5th, 2009 by admin
Today we’re pleased to introduce the Pet Store for World of Warcraft, a new way for players to obtain in-game pets to join them on their adventures in Azeroth. Two brand-new companions are now available for purchase exclusively at the Pet Store in the online Blizzard Store: Lil’ K.T. and the Pandaren Monk.
Make a Difference: Pandaren Monk Charity Pet
Enter the Pandaren Monk, ( http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000763 ) a martial-arts expert who’s here to help celebrate the upcoming fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft. He may be cute, but he’s proof that even the softest of critters can overcome the hardest of circumstances. For every Pandaren Monk that finds its way to a player’s side between now and the end of the year (December 31, 2009 at 11:59 PDT), we’ll donate 50 percent of the $10 purchasing price to the Make-a-Wish Foundation in an effort to brew up a little hope, strength, and joy in a child’s life.
Lil’ K.T., the Littlest Lich
Lil’ K.T. is a miniature lich who bears a striking resemblance to the legendary lord of Naxxramas, Kel’Thuzad. But don’t let his diminutive stature fool you:
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on November 2nd, 2009 by admin
Because we’re such nice guys, we over here at WoW.com would like to remind everyone that while the Hallow’s End festivities have come to a much-too-soon end (who doesn’t enjoy all of Azeroth feeling a little bit like the Undercity?), a new, very short holiday kicks off, too. Day of the Dead, literally the English translation of Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday celebrated to remember those who have moved on, begins right when Hallow’s End ends. The short, two-day holiday happens on November 1 and 2, coinciding with the Catholic holidays of All Saints’ Day and All Soul’s Day, which are celebrated elsewhere in the world.
During the event, players will have to /dance with an NPC named Catrina in order to get the Dead Man’s Party Achievement, a reference to the Catrina dolls of Mexico, those skeletons in fabulously fashionable dresses and hats. There’s also a recipe in-game for Bread of the Dead, another translation of the holiday’s Pan de Muerto. This is required for The Grateful Dead, which appear to be a collection of quests requiring players to bring the bread to various ghosts in graveyards all over the game world. We
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on October 28th, 2009 by admin
Warning: As is the nature of reviews, the following review has a few spoilers for the video.
The Critical Flaw Pilot by Ian Beckman is an experimental live action piece, centered around two roomies who are also gamers. You not only have your usual shenanigans in this kind of sitcom piece, but there’s also a heavy dose of World of Warcraft humor thrown in.
While I’m not certain I’d ever be inclined to play World of Warcraft with my feet, I definitely have to respect the guy who does. That’s a level of dedication and skill that you just don’t see every day. It’s definitely a few feet above your usual water level of player ability. (Do you see what I did there?)
The murloc joke is probably my favorite bit. Certainly, it could be argued that murlocs are the slippery banana peel of WoW comedy. If you throw in a random murloc gag, you’re guaranteed to at least get an extra chuckle. This one especially appeals to me, though, and I’ll probably be building my own murloc litter box in the near future.
At the end of the day, I hope Ian gets enough support for this series to keep going. I think it could really grow with another episode or two
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on October 26th, 2009 by admin
Totem Talk is the column for shamans. Matthew Rossi has found himself healing endless heroics in a conscious decision to improve his healing gear before 3.3 drops. Meanwhile, other shamans are apparently doing something else…
This week, we at WoW.com have received multiple tips about tanking shamans. Several commenters linked to this post over at Righteous Defense discussing Sharicasmi, a shaman tank. I was disinclined to talk about it, first because I already play a couple of tanks as it is and because I feel like shamans have enough going on as melee DPS, caster DPS and healers. Do shamans really need to tank? Three out of the four possible roles in an instance isn’t enough for them?
But then I thought about it from the other angle. Two of our hybrids can heal, tank and DPS, and one of those hybrids can heal, tank, melee DPS and ranged DPS. While elemental and enhancement are very different in terms of how they play and what they do, they’re still both DPS, they just go about it differently. Am I dismissing the idea of a tanking shaman too soon? Should I be more open? In the end, I decided to let you as readers make the judgment call instead of me. If this
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on October 22nd, 2009 by admin
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about leveling a rogue from level 1 to level 10.
So, after reading the list of pros and cons, you’ve committed to starting your new rogue. This is a proud day for the brotherhood of assassins, as we welcome a new member into our fold. You will learn to embrace the shadows and your adrenaline will spike after your first kill. You will learn to hide your tracks and strike fear into your enemies.
Before you’re ready to slay dragons and assassinate high-profile targets, you’ve got a lot of learning to do. Rogues can be a complex class, with our nearly limitless bag of tricks and a playstyle that is uniquely our own. You must learn how to use your techniques effectively, and how to maximize your damage output while staying alive. The journey from a young rogue to a powerful assassin begins today.
I’ll assume you’ve read the first article of this series, and you’ve chosen a great name and customized your new character to your liking. You’re thrown right into combat upon
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on October 19th, 2009 by admin
Welcome to Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that champions the causes of wizards everywhere, be they fiery, frosty, or arcane…y. The top issue facing the mage community right now? Warlocks: how to get the stink out of your robes after setting one on fire? Fear not, Arcane Brilliance has the solution: when killing warlocks, always stand upwind.
Since last we convened as a body of mages, no fewer than two new builds have descended upon the PTR, heralding a slew of upcoming changes for our class. Alex wrote an excellent post covering the first few of these, but a few more nuggets of newness have surfaced since then that need to be addressed. And since I’m a diagnosed (and unrepentant) completionist, we’re going to go ahead and double back to analyze those earlier changes as well. The next installment of our mage leveling guide will come next week.
So without further preamble, let’s look at the changes, shall we?
Fire
Improved Scorch: The debuff from this talent no longer stacks, and instead can apply the full effect from a single cast of Scorch.
Sweet fancy Moses. Raise your hand if you’ve been asking for this since the very moment Scorch
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on October 14th, 2009 by admin
Many folks this afternoon playing on EU servers have tipped us to the issues going on with Battle.net. It seems that they are unable to logon, with all accounts being stuck on the “Connecting” phase.
This is really bad timing for this to be happening, as it was just announced yesterday that on November 11th in the US and November 12th in the EU all accounts will have to be converted to Battle.net accounts. Many people are concerned that these problems will persist through the conversion, although it’s important to remember that these issues have existed before Battle.net came about as well.
There has not been any official word from Blizzard on today’s EU problems, but that hopefully be coming along shortly — along with an idea of when it all will be fixed.
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on October 12th, 2009 by admin
After someone asks a question on the forums about the new Mage Tier 10 bonus and the numbers behind it, Ghostcrawler brings up a little interesting insight into the way Blizzard puts these abilities and attributes together. He says that there are two steps to implementing a new ability: mechanics first, and then numbers later. That may seem common sense (and to a certain extent, it definitely is), but it’s interesting to note that it’s always what the ability does first, and then numbers later. Blizzard is much less likely (relatively speaking of course, and there are plenty of exceptions to this rule) to put a new ability into the game than just tweak current numbers.
It makes sense, and if there’s a new ability you’ve been waiting to see in the game, maybe the reason Blizzard hasn’t tackled it yet is that they’re working on tweaking numbers to try and fix it without starting up a new mechanic. Ghostcrawler also says that this is the PTR we’re dealing with, and so of course those Tier 10 bonuses aren’t set in stone yet, just like everything else being tested. They don’t call it the PTR for nothing.
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »
Posted on October 12th, 2009 by admin
Well, Jaina got her upgrade already, and we’ve heard that other NPCs may be looking a little better very soon. But what about us players? Don’t we get a cool, slick new look too? Vaneras has the answer: erm, maybe. As you may have noticed, our armor has been getting updated as we’ve gone along — the Tier 10 armor is much clearer and more stylish (well, depending on who you talk to) than the original tier gear that dropped way back when. But as for the actual player models, Vaneras says it’s something that Blizzard would like to do, but it’s all a matter of time and priority. They’ll get around to it, sure, but only when it makes sense for them to spend the time on it.
Which is what we’ve heard before, really — J. Allen Brack told us way back that things would be updated bit by bit rather than having a major patch be focused on updating everything you can see on screen. Still, Cataclysm, the expansion that redoes the old world and all of its old models, might be a good time to do exactly this and revamp players’ looks as well. We can tell you for sure that the worgen and goblins are going to look very nice (not to
Filed under: World of Warcraft | No Comments »