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Latest Elsword patch introduces enhanced PvP, grouping incentives
Kill3rCombo's anime-style sidescroller Elsword has just received a brand-new update that adds a few new features for players to enjoy. PvPers will surely be overjoyed by the newly enhanced PvP system, which boasts new matchmaking functionality and the addition of Arena Points. Arena Points are earned by players through participation in matchmade games and can be used to purchase new weapons. Social players will find that partying up now grants increased experience points, which should provide greater incentive to adventure as a group. The final two Velder town levels are now available, and so are two new pets which will assist players on their adventures. To get in on the fun, head on over to Elsword's official site. [Source: Kill3rCombo press release]
Lost Pages of Taborea: Badge of honor
I've been spending a lot of time lately in Runes of Magic's battlefields and arena. There are a number of these instanced PvP areas and this crafter has been enjoying most of them. The battlefields, arena, and guild siege system all have tasty incentives in the form of points or badges. Basically operating as a form of currency, these PvP rewards can all be spent on a variety of items. If you thought gear grinding or buying purified fusion stones was the only way to improve your character, then think again. If you thought spending diamonds or exorbitant amounts of gold was the only way to improve your pet, then think again. If you thought Kipos had one ugly mug... well, you'd be right. In this article I take a look at a couple alternative forms of currency you can get your hands on and what you can do with them.
Arena points being reimbursed... for now
Players will be seeing the arena points they had left after season 7 ended be reimbursed in the near (if not immediate) future. Yesterday players logged on after maintenance to discover their points had been wiped, and that season 8 had not yet begun. Arena points are only wiped at the beginning of a season, not before and not during the transition between seasons. Crygil's full statement on the reimbursement is as follows: Arena points were wiped during the recent maintenance following the end of the arena season on January 19th. We initially intended to launch the next arena season this week, but it was delayed due to the minor content patch that needs to coincide with the beginning of the season having some last minute issues to resolve. Due to the delay in the arena season we are in the process of reimbursing arena points to all eligible participants. Characters will be returned to the amount they had on Tuesday, January 26th. All arena points will then be wiped when season 8 begins. We apologize for the confusion this caused and appreciate your understanding Rumors place season 8 beginning next week, although there has been no official announcement. Arena season 8 will begin with the release of patch 3.3.2 -- of which we recently discovered translated Korean patch notes.
BlizzCon 2009: Rated battlegrounds and the return of PvP titles
One of the most widely-cheered announcements during the Game Systems panel was the introduction of rated battlegrounds and the reappearance of old PvP titles from the now-defunct ranking system. It's a question we've seen asked a lot -- plenty of people out there aren't fond of arena but love battlegrounds, and many of them chafed under the inability to get up-to-date PvP gear. It looks like Blizzard will be trying to reward better battleground play without punishing people who have the bad luck to land on an indifferent PuG. Here's what we know so far: Whichever battleground is currently on its holiday weekend will also be a rated battleground for that week. Battleground wins will award both rating and arena points. Battleground losses won't punish you with a ratings loss, but also won't award any points. I would assume that you can continue to accrue honor and a single BG token per loss. Points earned will be capped at a certain number (not yet known) per week to keep rated battlegrounds from feeling too "grindy." Your battleground ratings will, like the current arena system, encompass two ratings: a personal and a match-making rating. Old PvP rankings will make their reappearance as end-of-season titles (e.g., "Scout," "Commander," "Centurion"). No word yet on whether these are permanent or if, like the non-Gladiator arena titles, you have to earn them each season to continue displaying them. "Special epic ground mounts" will be made available to people playing the rated battlegrounds. Rated battleground wins will also contribute to the new guild talent system. BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
Badge purchases now refundable for two hours
A previously unannounced relatively un-promoted feature is apparently going live in patch 3.1 today: buyback for "alternate currency" items. "Alternate currency" means any currency except gold - Emblems of Heroism, Arena Points, etc. According to Vaneras, when the patch goes live, you'll have two hours after buying an item with an alternate currency to sell it back and get a refund. I've never accidentally bought something with badges, but I know people who have, and it sucks; this is a nice fix. A few caveats: Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs) are non-refundable. Items that grant achievements are non-refundable. Augments will not be returned - if you buy an item, enchant it, and then sell it back for badges, you don't get your enchant mats back. This only works one step back: If you buy a tier token for emblems, then exchange that tier token for a tier piece, you can trade the tier piece back for the token if you want. You can not, however, trade that token back for emblems after doing that. Even with these limitations, it's still good protection against accidental purchases. Thanks, Blizz!
Wrath 101: PvP welfare gear
With gear upgrades these days being so easy to come by, I'm not so sure 'welfare epics' is such an accurate term for PvP gear anymore. That said, Arena Season 5 started the other day without so much as a whimper. It kind of crept in quietly, without even a patch to go along with it. I'm sure it's taken a few players by surprise to see so many new PvP gear available from different sources that it can get confusing. I know I wrote about it in an old post, but quite a bit has changed since Beta, and some things don't quite apply. Don't worry, we're here to help you make sense of it all.First of all, in the new PvP rewards system there are three tiers of PvP gear. The Savage Gladiator, Hateful Gladiator, and Deadly Gladiator are equivalent to Level 80 dungeon blues, 10-man raid epics, and 25-man raid epics respectively, with a lot of item points thrown in the way of Resilience and sometimes Stamina. These items aren't the best for PvE, so gear accordingly. You'll be wasting a lot of item points by way of Resilience, so keep in mind that all this new gear is best for your Battleground and Arena pursuits.
Quick Armory remixes Armory and achievement data with Greasemonkey
Erorus sent us some cool Armory-related tools he's been working on -- you can find them all at QuickArmory.com. Aside from the usual Armory lookup (with a much faster loading design), he's got an Heirloom item tracker (you put in your level and it will show you what the Heirloom items look like throughout the game), an Arena Points calculator, and perhaps most interesting, an Achievement Tracker. That last one actually does something a little different from most Armory sites -- it uses the Greasemonkey Firefox script to have your browser pull information from the Armory rather than Erorus' servers doing it. The output ends up looking more or less the same, but basically his site tells your browser what information to get, and your browser gets the info rather than his server. Interesting way of getting around the problem of stability, though the tradeoff is that you've got to use Firefox and install the addon to use his site.None of the tools provide quite as much functionality as some of the other more specialized Armory sites out there, but Erorus does some new and interesting things with the Armory information, on the Achievement tracker especially. If you can't get enough of your character's stats (and in this case, happen to also use Firefox), they're worth checking out.
Ask a Beta Tester: The Drakkensryd, Dispersion, and other stuff
We'll get started with Gareth's question... How is the Storm Peaks coming along? Seems like it has a lot of history and culture behind it. This zone has been closed off more than it's been open. There are a few hefty bugs that they're trying to iron out that forces them to seal it off now and then, since the bugs bring the entire world server down. That and there was an XP exploit that the beta testers found and needed to be dealt with mighty quickly, so it was sealed off for that as well. As far as the history and culture, I loved what I saw. A lot of Titan lore, a lot of Dwarven history. The introduction to the zone is pretty awful, though. Your first quest hub in the culture-rich zone is a Goblin town (K3) full of whimsy that has little to do with the zone's overall story. I guess you need to keep the mood light sometimes, though. Still, despite the silly Goblins, it was one of my favorite zones while I could get in there. Blizzard has thrown around the term "epic scale" quite a bit, and I think Storm Peaks really displays that. The place is absolutely massive, in the good way. Watch the video above if you want an example of the quests you'll be seeing. Be warned, it's kind of a spoiler in that doing this quest for the first time really leaves you in awe. Watching it beforehand might take that away a little.dotorion asked...Does Northrend have a 'level requirement' like Outlands?
Wrath PvP gear hints at Arena Season 5
I was somewhat puzzled when the first pieces of PvP gear started showing up in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. The traditional 5-piece set of helm, shoulders, chest, legs, and gloves (as well as the weapons) were of blue or rare quality while the non-set pieces normally obtained through Honor -- bracers, belt, and boots -- were purples or epic. The blue items were tagged 'LK Arena 1' items and the purples were tagged 'LK Honor' items, which were easy enough to decipher.However, MMO Champion uncovered an epic quality 2-handed mace tagged 'LK Arena 2', which is a rather curious item considering the game files already have LK Arena 1 2h Mace. What does it mean? At this point, not much. A lot can change from now until Wrath finally goes live, but if we were to put some weight into the item nomenclature, it might indicate that Blizzard plans to tier Arena gear similar to how they plan to create two separate tiers for 10- and 25-man dungeon items.
Arena points reset in Wrath for Season 5
If there was a question about how Blizzard planned to deal with Arena points in Wrath of the Lich King -- which seems so palpably close -- Wryxian explained their resolution to the problem of carrying over points from Level 70 to 80. The answer? They won't. Players who hit Level 71 will have all their Arena points reset to 0 and be removed from all Level 70 bracket Arena teams. New skirmish brackets will open up for those between Levels 71-75 and Levels 79-80. As mentioned before, Level 80 players will be able to participate in rated matches and be eligible for Level 80 Arena rewards that will, thankfully, look distinctively different from PvE gear. This means that players should be spending their Arena points now instead of banking the maximum 5000 points, as it will not carry over past Level 70. In this scheme of progression, Level 70 Arenas will conceivably die an eventual natural death.What does this mean for the current season? When the pre-Wrath content patch is released, we're likely to see a shake-up in class representation in Arena play, as more classes become viable. It is also highly likely that the current season will end when Wrath is finally released, and competitive or rated Arena play will be in a state of limbo as Blizzard is likely to allow several weeks for players to reach Level 80 before starting a new Arena season.
[UPDATED] The potential of Arena points for Wintergrasp
A new spell popped up in the latest Beta build called Wintergrasp Rewards, which indicate that there might finally be another way to earn Arena points other than to participate in Arenas. Granting Arena points through Lake Wintergrasp also indicates an interesting direction for World of Warcraft PvP. [UPDATE: Blizzard has stated that Arena points from Wintergrasp is only for the Beta to allow accelerated purchase and testing of PvP gear -- thanks Cuer] Despite the ongoing and earnest efforts of Blizzard to balance classes for PvP, particularly Arenas, the format doesn't lend itself well to a complete balancing of classes. Because of the required team synergies and map limitations, there will always be class specs that will suffer in the Arena PvP format.Battlegrounds PvP, on the other hand, is more open and spontaneous, even in pre-formed groups. No classes or specs are shunned, and every player enjoys relative viability and success. Giving Arena points through Wintergrasp achieves two things: first, it opens up Arena rewards to people who do not participate in or have limited success in Arenas; second, it greatly incentivizes participation in Lake Wintergrasp. The only question left is the matter of Personal Ratings, which is a requirement for most of the current gear, a trend likely to continue in Wrath of the Lich King.
[UPDATED] Blood Sport: Arena for dummies I
Arena Season 6 is just around the corner. For many players, it's simply another chapter in the controversial Arena saga. Some love it and thrive in the Arenas, while others loathe it. Whatever players might think, however, it seems like Arenas are here to stay. For those players who have only recently hit Level 80, or for carebears suddenly willing to take the plunge, there might be a lot of questions about these "Arenas" that everyone seems to be talking about these days.I want to do Arenas, how do I start?Forming an Arena team is similar to forming a guild. Once you are Level 70, you can purchase an Arena Team Charter from any Arena Organizer, such as "King" Dond in Nagrand, Steamwheedle Sam in Blade's Edge Mountains, and Bip Nigstrom in Tanaris. Of course, nowadays, it's easier to go to Dalaran and talk to "Baroness" Llana or Kanika Goldwell in the sewers.The cost of the charter depends on the size of the team you're creating, costing roughly 40 Gold per team member. A 2v2 charter costs 80G, a 3v3 costs 120G, and a 5v5 costs 200G.When you purchase a charter, you will need to give it a name. Don't worry about it too much at this point because you can change it later when you hand in the charter. Similar to Guild Charters, you select a Level 70 player, right-click on the Team Charter, and ask them to sign it. Once you have all the necessary signatures (one more for a 2v2, two for a 3v3, and four for a 5v5 -- you count as the first), go back to any of the Arena Organizers and turn it in. Finalize your team name before handing it in, and then design a logo for your team. Once you hand it in, you'll be able to participate in Arenas by talking to an Arena Promoter and queueing up for a match just as you would for a Battleground.
Breakfast Topic: How's Season 4 going for you?
The first day of Season 4 has come and gone, and with it, I'm sure a lot of players spent a lot of time recovering from the switchover and beginning the climb to Gladiator rank for the end of Season 4. Arena players rushed out to buy new Season 4 gear -- at least the stuff that didn't need a high rating -- while many battleground regulars probably went to get their hands on the Season 2 gear for Honor points. I'm sure a lot of teams started play today if only to try to push up their rating and get more gear earlier. If you're a little overwhelmed by all the Season 4 hubbub whipping around, let WoW Insider get you squared a way a bit better. You can check out our Season 4 Information roundup, chock full of useful articles that will help you get the most out of this season, or you can check our Season 4 brutal gladiator gear roundup for information on all the new stuff you can spend your Arena and Honor points on. If you plunged right into the thick of things, how did you do? Did you fight enough Arena battles to get a set of bracers, or are you waiting for the teams to settle into proper brackets before you dive in? Did you just stick with buying some season 2 gear or a new belt with some saved up Honor points? Or, did you just sell armor patches and gem cuts to everyone looking to kit out their new gear? Let us know how the new season's treating you!
Arena Season 4: Everything we know about the brutal season
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/World_of_Warcraft_s_Arena_Season_4_goes_live_today'; Arena Season 4 is finally here. After a long wait of 30 weeks, longer than previous Arena seasons, Blizzard finally decided to end Season 3 and foist upon the public the widely regarded as brutally ugly Brutal Gladiator gear. The new season is different in that virtually all armor pieces and weapons will have personal ratings requirements in order to purchase them. What do we know about the new season and the events that led to it?It's been a long time coming.Arena Season 3 has dragged on long enough that we've speculated on the reasons for Blizzard's delay and even planned around it: Read our report on Drysc's comment about letting more Sunwell Plateau gear spread into the playing community before starting Season 4 in Season 4 and PvE progression. We examine the implications of a long season and how the new mechanics can help stem the flow of Brutal Gladiator gear too rapidly in The Long Wait for Season 4. We've been drooling over the gear as early as February when the first leaks of Brutal Gladiator items leaked through MMO Champion. The wait has been so long that a lot of people have been banking the maximum 75,000 Honor and 5,000 Arena points in preparation for Season 4. New season, new rules.Season 4 is a more brutal season in many ways, the most significant of which is the ratings requirements for most of the Brutal Gladiator items: We found out about the extremely prohibitive 2200 personal ratings requirement for Season 4 shoulders when items snuck out on the European Armory. Drysc talks about new team and personal ratings requirements for Season 4 of 2200 for shoulders, 2050 for weapons, and the ratings for everything else. Season 4 will continue to implement the closely tied relationship between personal and team ratings started in Season 3, which Bornakk explains in detail. With the new rules, there are new benchmarks for everyone to achieve, whether it be a modest 1550 or a lofty 2200. Of course, 2000 doesn't mean squat. Are you ready for Season 4?We've asked this question several times in the past, but now that the season is finally here, are you really ready? Read on a few pointers on how to survive the new season: Know absolutely nothing about Arenas? And by nothing, we really mean WoW Rookie-style nothing. Head on over to our completely n00b-friendly FAQ for Arena dummies. A new Arena Season isn't just for PvP players, it's for entrepreneurs, too. Read about how enterprising players can make money when Season 4 opens. Not very good at PvP? If your team can only scrape by and not make the personal ratings requirements for Season 4, there're always the epic gems for sale for Arena points. Just in case you want some pointers on how to do better in Arenas (and get more than just welfare gems), you might want to check out some videos of the best of the best. After Season 3 is done, we hope you made sure you qualified for the end-of-season rewards. If not, you can always prepare for this season. If you aren't too big on Arenas, Battlegrounds enthusiasts can take advantage of Season 2 gear going on sale for Honor in Season 4. Just in case you have the banked Arena points and manage to achieve the required personal ratings, are you really sure you want to buy that brutally ugly gear? So maybe you have decided to buy all that ugly gear. Check out WoW Insider's extensive Brutal Gladiator and Guardian gear guide to shed a little more light on your decisions. Maybe reading through our gear guide has actually convinced you that they're not so bad, after all. You can take a look at all the gear in detail in our Brutal Gladiator Arms and Equipment Gallery. Don't forget to click on the Hi-Res button for a higher resolution picture. Keep checking back on this post as we continue to grow our Season 4 coverage. Looking for more Season 4 info? Check out our extensive rating guide for the new Season 4 armor sets!
Epic Gems for Arena points coming with patch 2.4.3
Here's some nice news for Arena PvPers in the area of undocumented 2.4.3 changes: MMO Champion has discovered that the PvP gems that are currently purchasable for honor points are now available for Arena points as well -- 800 points each, to be exact. The full list of gems is as follows: Gleaming Ornate Dawnstone Smooth Ornate Dawnstone Bold Ornate Ruby Runed Ornate Ruby Inscribed Ornate Topaz Potent Ornate Topaz
'Tis the Season 4 making money
Eyonix made a lot of players happy the other day by announcing the start of Season 4. It's something that a lot of players have been waiting for, even planning for. Some players will be making the mad rush to accumulate Arena and Honor points. Within the first week of the new season, players who have stashed away the maximum 5,000 Arena points will be able to purchase anywhere from two to three pieces of Brutal Gladiator gear, provided they achieve the required personal ratings.For other players such as those who have only recently dinged 70 or those new to the PvP scene, the 75,000 maximum Honor -- or whatever Honor they have stashed away -- will likely be used to purchase Merciless Gladiator gear when it goes on sale. More seasoned players will use the Honor to purchase Guardian gear to round out their equipment slots. When Season 4 starts, players will be strutting around Azeroth in brand spanking new gear. For a select few, these players will look like walking piles of Gold. New Arena seasons flood the community with enchant-worthy, gem-hungry gear like no other event.
The fate of Season 1 gear in Season 4
A lot of people -- including John, who asked us about this by email -- are a little confused about what's happening to Arena Season 1 gear when Season 4 goes live on June 24th. Season 1 gear for honor is being replaced by Season 2 gear, but at the same time, Eyonix has posted to say that they don't have plans to switch around the PvE tokens for PvP gear system implemented with patch 2.4. So wait, is Season 1 gear available during Season 4 or not? The answer is yes, but only from Tier 4 PvE tokens. When season 3 went live, as you will remember, Season 1 gear went over to Honor, and bumped the old level 70 High Warlord and Grand Marshal gear completely off the vendors. You could not longer get it. Likewise, when Season 2 gear moves to honor, it will completely knock off the Season 1 gear from the honor vendors, and you will no longer be able to purchase it for honor. However, if you have Tier 4 tokens, you'll still be able to head to the Isle of Quel'danas and turn them in for Season 1 Gladiator gear. If you want Season 2 Gladiator gear from PvE, you'll still have to turn in Tier 5 tokens from Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep. This might be Blizzard's attempt to keep the balance, although it seems like anyone with the ability to go take down Magtheridon for a Chestguard of the Fallen Hero could get Season 2 much easier and faster by grinding honor. It seems in this case that the dev team either felt that it wasn't worth it to go in and switch up the gear vendors or wanted to keep the amount of balance and challenge they implemented for the PvE token to PvP gear conversion. So is Season 1 gear going away? In short, no. You'll not be able to buy it for honor anymore, but you will be able to buy it with Tier 4 tokens.
Starting from scratch with two weeks to Season 4
Blizzard surprised everyone yesterday by announcing the start of Arena Season 4, slaking the thirst of Arena junkies everywhere. Although Drysc's announced that PvP progression is intended to match PvE progression, it seems that Blizzard feels that enough Sunwell Plateau gear has trickled down to the player base for them to unleash a new Arena Season. Or it could be that they feel that the new personal ratings mechanic is enough of a bottleneck to slow down the flood of Level 154 items into the playing community.At any rate, now is the time to plan for Season 4. If you haven't already started, it might be a good idea to bank some Arena points. With two weeks of point gains to go, that means players currently with 0 Arena points can theoretically obtain a maximum of one Season 4 Arena piece as the gloves cost 1125 points and, more importantly, require no personal ratings. Players will need to earn about 563 Arena points for the next two weeks to earn enough to purchase the item. This means maintaining a 1788 rating in 2v2, 1722 in 3v3, and 1671 in 5v5. It's not an easy feat, but for those who are only starting to save up Arena points, the reality is that it's an uphill climb. No matter how good you are, it is impossible to amass 5,000 Arena points in two weeks.
When you are the weakest link
Our team tanked 76 points tonight. Despite winning five straight Arena games worth about 3 rating points each, we ran into a team that was pretty well-geared but were clearly playing below par. Unfortunately, our leader disconnected midway through the match, and even though we were outplaying the opposing team, the loss of our primary DPS and tunnel vision (he plays a Rogue) was enough for the opposing team to eventually burn us down for a 27-point loss. Just like that, all our previous wins were nullified and we found ourselves lower than when we started. Familiar with the opposing team's make-up, we counter-comped and proceeded to beat them thrice in a row until the fourth game where, in the middle of the battle, everyone started running in place on my screen and nothing was happening. It was my turn to get disconnected.I restarted my router and modem, waited a minute, and logged on to find we'd dropped another 25 points. Eager to recoup our losses against a team we were certain we could beat, we queued again. Not three minutes into the queue, my Vent went silent and I feared the worst. After making certain I had disconnected, I sent an SMS to our leader to tell him what had happened, went through the motions of connecting again and when I finally got on, I found that our team had tanked a total of 76 insane points. And it was largely my fault.
[1.Local]: A look at WoW Insider comments this week
WoW Insider serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.Readers picked some fairly off-beat topics to wax loquacious about this week. Join [1.Local] as we chew the fat over those conspiratorial, Horde-centric folks at Blizzard ... the controversy (or non-controversy?) of Arena point selling ... the virtues of dedicated banker characters ... and what we thought was a really interesting idea for PvP-oriented crafting.As always, be sure to dive into the comments area and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk. Employee-only bronze orc and wolf statue on eBayWe thought we were the only ones constantly accused of being Horde-centric – but it looks like Blizzard gets their fair share of finger-pointing, too, from readers like Gror: "Anyone else think that this is more proof that Blizz favours the Horde? They got a 12-foot statue made of an Orc and give all their employees Orc statues. Sickens me! This game for a long time has been Horde-biased! So hordeinsider.com, your mission will soon be completed." Bwahahaha.
