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Blizzard schedules PvPTR arena testing events
The PTR servers for patch 5.4 are crawling with testers for raids and PvE content, but PvP areas need testing too! To help facilitate the process, Blizzard will be holding two special PvPTR testing events. These events are set at certain dates and times in order to hopefully get quicker queues, more matches, better competition, and better feedback on PvP issues and changes. Part one of the event takes place Wednesday, July 10 from 4pm-8pm PDT. Part two will take place on Saturday, July 30 from 8am-1pm PDT. Along with the fun of PvP combat, Arena Junkies will be hosting some giveaways, and several of their streamers will be participating in the events and streaming them live for people to watch. As always, if you're participating in these events, leaving your feedback in the PTR Discussion Forum afterwards is highly recommended -- it's why the events are being held, after all! If you're a PvP fanatic looking to test the new content, the events should offer you more than enough challenge, fun, and play testing time. For more information on the event, the streams, and the giveaways, take a look at the official site. Good luck to all who participate!
Arenajunkies interviews top Arena priests
With the Battle.net World Championships coming up in just a few days' time, ArenaJunkies has been very busy interviewing some of the top arena players who'll be battling it out in Shanghai. We've got interviews from two of what I can fairly confidently say are among the world's top priests, Zunniyaki and Talbadar. Zunniyaki is a member of Yaspresents, with Another on a death knight and Cara on a paladin. Yaspresents stormed to a decisive victory in the Battle.net European Invitationals in Cologne, comfortably dismissing most of their competition in an undefeated run of best of 3 matches. Talbadar is one third of Team Evil Geniuses, along with renowned shaman and warlock Cdew and Azael. Again, like Yaspresents, Evil Geniuses took a victory in the North American Invitationals, comfortably securing their place in Shanghai. Both these priests are at the top of their game, and bound to make a splash during the tournaments coming up between November 16 and 18. Hit the break for the second video interview with Talbadar!
How far have you progressed in Cataclysm?
The other day, I logged on to an old realm of mine to chat for a bit with a few friends and old guildmates. (I do this periodically, since I'm not a big fan of using Real ID for anyone other than very close friends.) Whenever I'm there, I casually poke around on a character that was once my prized raiding toon in early Wrath of the Lich King. "Poking around" consists of organizing my bank and doing about three to five quests. I figure it would be nice to have another 85 that I could play casually, but I lose interest in it too quickly. Anyway, at some point in the middle of a conversation with a mage friend, I said, "At a rate of three quests per night that I actually log in, I should be 85 in two years." "It really gives you some perspective on how much you have to play this game, doesn't it?" he responded. I hadn't been serious about the statement I made, but it made me think about the hours I had to play to get to 85 on my main. It occurred to me that if you only play WoW for an hour or so every few days, it would probably take a couple months to get to level 85 from 80, and that's only if you're completely focused each time you log in. This got me wondering how far into Cataclysm everyone else is. %Poll-60657%
Vote for your favorite fan-made Arena
Arena Junkies has an appropriately-themed contest going on over at their site where they asked their community of high-rated Arena players to design their own Arena. The community was quick to whip out everything from pencils to 3D programs and came up with a pretty good selection of possible Arena maps. How good were the maps? Well, let's just say I'd take any of the submissions over the awful Ring of Valor Arena. Alright, so maybe that's not a good gauge... but it's worth going over the entries to see what creative ideas the Arena-enthusiastic community have come up with.The top three winners will receive tickets to BlizzCon while registered Arena Junkies users who vote for the winning maps have a chance to win a Blizzard Authenticator. Pretty cool prizes for a pretty cool contest, so head over to their site and register if you haven't already. New Arena maps would be a welcome addition to the game and conceivably not too much work considering no new mechanics need to be in place unlike the Battlegrounds, which have different objectives. In fact, new Battlegrounds maps using the same mechanics would be an interesting addition to break the tedium.
15 Minutes of Fame: e-sportscaster tracks WoW tournies Part 2
WoW as an e-sport currently is actually pretty awful. Two, for example, are the Electronic Sports League (ESL) who have a world wide tournament, the finals being in March 2009, and Major League Gaming, a console-centric league who expanded to PC earlier this year with WoW. There are not a lot of amateur tournaments out there for WoW.
15 Minutes of Fame: e-sportscaster tracks WoW tournies
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. First off, let's establish this for the record: yes, there are people out there who play World of Warcraft professionally. There are pro teams, well known player personalities and an entire tournament scene. And behind it all, there are podcasters – "e-casters" – reporting on every twist and turn.Meet JP McDaniel, a 22-year-old college journalism major and podcaster for ArenaCast. JP has combined the game he loves with school and work in what he hopes will be a springboard to a print journalism career in gaming. He's managed to roll his main up to 80 in the midst of podcasting, news updates, tournament travel and his studies. We talked with JP about his road into e-casting and his perspectives on where e-sports -- and competitive WoW, in particular -- are heading.
Arena Junkies releases Arena recruitment functionality
The Arena Junkies have been pretty active lately. Last week, they published insight to Gladiator class break-downs from the first three seasons of the Arena. Now, Arena Junkies has busted out a brand new tool -- its new Arena recruitment functionality. The goal is to provide someplace for Arena fighters to locate others of similar goals, and recruit one another for teams. ArenaArc was probably the first of this kind of channel, but Arena Junkies is definitely home to all things Arena. According to Tyveris, there's a couple bells and whistles that will help appeal to harder-core Arena enthusiast. First, the listings expire, so you can be sure the current listings are up-to-date and valid. Second, high-level Arena players can restrict searches to return only players who have 2,000 or higher ratings. Third, Arena Junkies will fill out your resume with information they already know from the Armory. This tool should be pretty useful to AJ's forum members, and maybe even to folks who are struggling with an up-and-coming team. And as always, the AJ team is already being very responsive to their customers, and updating the tool to meet feedback. So, go check it out, read up on some strategies, and good luck in the Arena.
The Colosseum: Maimage of Korgath, Vengeful Gladiator
The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.Maimage, a Warrior on Korgath, is one of the many high-ranked players competing in the Arena Junkie's Olympic contest. He's sitting right now on the team AJOlympics at 2321. Maimage is one of few, the proud -- the Vengeful Gladiators. Like many such players, however, he also has a fairly high alt priest named Maimgler, hovering around the 2K rating mark.We caught up with him, as we tend to do, and Maim was helpful in supplying some insight about the way the Arena works. Check out what he had to say after the cut. Since he's more experienced with his Warrior, his answers are mostly focused on that class. That makes him the first Warrior for the Colosseum, and his answers contrast interestingly with previous week's speakers.
Arena Junkies looks at some Gladiator statistics
You have to be real careful about how you put together statistics. As Gregg Easterbrook said, "Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything." So, grain of salt, people. That being said, Arena Junkies has put up a pretty interesting compilation of numbers. They took a look at their (fairly substantial) membership, and figured out the approximate class makeup of each Arena season's Gladiators. The results aren't exactly a surprise, which supports the analysis's validity. Warlocks -- once the Arena juggernaut to the sounds of much QQ -- have lost 8% of their dominance in the Gladiator ranks. By comparison, Rogues have picked up 6.5%. Druids are the big winners, though. Only 7.5% of Season 1's gladiators were druids, compared to 16% of Season 3's. And yeah. There's a lot of metagame interpretation that could be done regarding these numbers. Melee have slowly risen in power over the span of three seasons, and Paladins -- once the bubbling unstoppable -- have really dropped in performance. Druids used to be unremarkable, but now the "science" of Line-of-Sight and Mobility has taken the day. Arena Junkies promise to further update their analysis when the Hall of Fame is updated for Season 3. But I agree with Tyveris: I think the current sample is indicative, and we're not going to see any huge differences between these numbers and those.
Arena Junkies hosts Arena Olympics
If you haven't heard, Arena Junkies is hosting their own Arena Junkies Olympic Contest. So while many of us are working on getting our own Spirit of Competition from the Azeroth Olympics, the Arena minded can compete to win a key to the Wrath of the Lich King beta. Basically, you start a team with the phrase "AJOlympics" included in its name. Then, you go play in the Arena. The better you do, the more chances you get to win a key in the final drawing. You have to get at least a 2k Rating to even get one chance, so finally a 2000 rating will mean something again. They'll keep updating their leaderboards until the end of the contest, so you can see how many people you'll be facing off against in the final drawing. I think it's a pretty cool contest, and I wouldn't mind seeing one of our readers win it. Not that I'm hinting at y'all or anything.
World of Starcraft could still be the next-gen MMO
Arena Junkies picked up an interesting tidbit by comparing two different interviews. Rob Pardo, Blizzard's EVP of Game Design, gave an interview to Onlinewelten in which he talks about the next-gen MMO. That interview isn't exactly news on its own. We knew since Diablo III was announced at the WWI that it probably isn't the new MMO, and Pardo confirms that in the interview. "..Diablo 3 isn't an MMO," Pardo says, "So we have another development team." But what is that new MMO being developed? Some speculate it could be an entirely new property. Well, Paul Sams, Blizzard's Chief Operating Officer, has an interview with Gamasutra that indicates no new IPs are coming soon. "Are we ever going to release a new [franchise]?" Sams says, "I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don't know when that day will be quite yet." Okay, so Blizzard's still working on a MMO, but there's no new IP on the horizon. So, what's the next-gen MMO going to be? World of Warcraft 2? World of Starcraft? And if Diablo 3 isn't considered an MMO, then is there a possibility of a World of Diablo? For me, this just means that my hopes of Tauren Marines aren't yet dead.
Arena Junkies fires up S3 Calculator, hooks up with Curse
Arena Junkies has been pretty busy lately -- not only are they updating their Season 3 title calculator in preparation for the new Season, they've partnered with Curse to improve their service. The Season Three Arena Title Calculator by Arena Junkies is created by some pretty involved techniques. They start by plunging a few teams in each bracket and battlegroup as far down the ranking ladder as they can possibly get. Then, the theorycrafters at Arena Junkies do their very best guess about how many teams are inactive. Using that data, they math out what ranking you'll probably need to achieve a given title. As AJ points out, though, this is just an estimate. They don't have the behind-the-scenes data anlysis to guarantee what will be required, and the ranks will be at least a little fluid until the very end. However, as you grind your Arena ranking as high as you can tonight, this'll give you an idea of what title you might expect when S4 starts. Assuming you meet the requirements, of course. The Curse announcement last week was a little more vague, and there weren't definites about what the partnership would mean for Arena Junkies. According to Tyveris, the existing staff members are still in charge of the site, and very little will actually change. What it will allow them to do, however, is add new features in the coming months. It'll be interesting to see what those features are, and whether it's part of that premium package that was mentioned a few months ago.
Arena Junkies suffers virus attack
Arena Junkies is one of the most reputable online sources for. . .arena junkies. Its posters are numbered predominately among the 2000+ Arena Rated teams, and thus the site serves as a key resource for arena veterans and up-and-comers alike. Arena Junkies hosts dozens of forums, macros, strategies, and example Arena-centric Talent builds. Arena Junkies is also an official part of the Blizzard Fan Site Program. Oh, and they've got their own T-Shirts.Which is why it can be so troubling to see they've been attacked by one of Vaneras's malicious "eVillains." The eVillain posted a "malicious applet" in their Interface forums, planting a virus which apparently spread to the hosting server itself. Naxos warns forum-goers that if any Junkie clicked on the link responsible for the attack, he or she should be careful that their system isn't under any danger. With the rising number of keyloggers and account theft, that kind of precaution is starting to get common for even the most casual WoW player.Naxos definitely seems to have a handle on the problem, though. Arena Junkies reverted to its last-saved backup, from very early that morning, and now Arena Junkies is back to running smoothly. According to Naxos, the virus itself was a variation of the i-worm/stration virus. Links to the virus have, understandably, been removed. It's unclear whether this attack was an attack of opportunity, or if someone has it out for the Arena Junkies. As Bio puts it: "He prob sucks at the arena."
