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New Wrath of the Lich King wallpapers on Blizz' EU site
Blizzard's site is down (and it's killing my daily routine of checking the forums, unfortunately), but there is one consolation -- over on the EU site, which is still up, you can grab a trio of new wallpapers for Wrath of the Lich King, including this handsome shot of the lichy monarch himself (although every time I see this armor, I can't help but think of Private Ownsusohard's "im the lich king lol" silliness back at BlizzCon).There's also a shot of Arthas rocking Frostmourne, and a screenshot of that big furnace inside Utgarde Keep (which has been around for a while, but still looks cool. If you're looking to adorn your desktop with some cold and snowy images while the weather heats up outside, there you go.In fact, almost any of these Wrath images might work for you. The sizes aren't actually wallpaper, but with a little tweaking, you could pretend you were in Northrend already.%Gallery-5525%
PvP gem hotfix needs a hotfix
For PvPers out there interested in the Mystic Dawnstone pattern from Halaa, a hotfix was applied yesterday which made it available at vendors in the city. Or, well, should have made it available. Reports from the European forums today suggest that the hotfix needs a hotfix, because the pattern still isn't spawning properly on EU realms. (No reports from US realms -- which I presume means everything is working as intended on US servers. But let us know if it's not!) Stay patient, everyone -- Blizzard is working on a fix.[via MMO Champion]
Mage's evocation: working as intended?
Over on the European forums, there's been some question over the Mage ability Evocation. High end mages are saying it's just not restoring enough mana to be useful. CM Aeus comes to the rescue with an answer -- though not the answer most Mages want to hear: We feel evocate is working as it is intended: it's simply highly dependent on how much spirit the mage has. Unfortunately, many mages seem not to like spirit that much and would rather spend their gem slots and enchants on other stats. This is fine, everyone has the freedom to choose what stats they want to focus on. Whereas in the past we forced a lot of spirit onto the mage's tier sets so that they would have good mana regen, to leave more room for flexibility and choice we have replaced a lot of that spirit with gem slots in recent gear.Mages, on the other hand, say that to maximize their DPS and justify their use in a raid, they're required to stack gear and gems that eschew spirit and add to their spell damage, thereby rendering Evocation useless. But if they want decent returns from Evocation, and enough mana regeneration to keep them going in long fights, they have to sacrifice their spot on the damage charts in order to equip more spirit gear. To this Aeus responds:No one's asking anyone to gimp themselves; just making it clear that choices have to be made when it comes to certain aspects.So, Mages, what do you think? Is Evocation working as intended -- or does it just not give Mages these days enough staying power if they're trying to keep to the top of the DPS charts?
Wanted: Dead or Alive
Haven't you ever just hated someone so much in WOW you wanted to kill them over and over, even though you couldn't? Maybe it's the 70 who ganked you for hours when you're only 34. Maybe it's the guild leader you found out was modifying DKP to suit him and his friends. Maybe it's the guy spewing racial insults in Org general chat. Well, Gamemaniak on the EU realms has a proposal for you. See, on his server, there's a guild that offers bounties on the heads of other players. Provide a screenshot of your kill of that player, and you collect gold from the guild. So, he wondered, why not implement this into the game? Set up a "WANTED" board in the major cities, so players could put bounties on other players of their own or the opposite faction. It would cost a nominal amount of money to put up a bounty, and you could offer whatever you wanted as the reward (of course, it would be automatically deducted from your inventory if someone with the bounty quest killed your mark.) Heck, you could even have the game send a letter to the mark informing them that they're being hunted. Normally, I'm not a big fan of things that would increase gankings, but I sort of like this idea. It would add a refreshing new dimension to world PVP and help the WoW community become more self-policing on annoying behaviors like stealing mats, begging for gold, or generally being a jerk. What do you think of this idea? If there was a bounty hunting system in the game, would you use it, or do you prefer to settle your scores the old-fashioned way?
Ex-Nihilum member claims guild exploited
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/WoW_Insider_Ex_Nihilum_member_claims_they_cheated_to_down_Vashj'; There's some pretty interesting forum drama going on in the European Raids and Dungeons forums. Lewt, an undead priest who spent two years in the guild before quitting WoW, claims that Nihilum purposely exploited a bug on their world first Lady Vashj kill (instead of an accidental bug that took away HP, as the guild states.) According to Lewt, you can purposely wipe at 20 percent and have a paladin use Divine Shield, which I don't really understand unless Lewt actually meant Divine Intervention. Then Vashj will reset to Phase 2, but since her HP is connected to the pillars she has, the HP will disappear when they despawn. This leaves her at 1 HP. Presto, a priest pops a soulstone and Shadow Word: Deaths her, and there you go. Lewt even provides a screenshot of him finishing off Vashj with an SWD, complete with chatlog. Kungen, Nihilum's guild leader, fires back with some screenshots of guild chat immediately following the kill, which are full of confusion. He said that the HP loss was a bug during the fight that surprised Nihilum, not a specific strategy that they exploited to get the kill. Lewt responds by saying that Nihilum had exploited in the past on BWL, bought gold, and had the guild second-in-command, Awake, pay Kungen's real-life bills. I've heard the first two accusations, but the last one is freaking awesome. My guild leader never pays my bills. And from there, the thread goes on in many entertaining ways, with Nihili (or whatever) and ex-Nihili arguing about the guild: whether it's possible to lead a normal life in Nihilum, whether the "Danish Mafia" edged out the English players, and a lot of other things that I'd probably understand if I spent more time on the Euro forums. I really don't know enough about the Vashj fight to judge this. I don't like Nihilum's guild recruitment policy and the gold buying rumors, but I'm not exactly ready to take the word of someone who named themself "Lewt." Another forum poster probably has the right sequences of events: The raid wiped, they noticed that Vashj had bugged out, Lewt decided to pop the soulstone and SWD her, writing "Sorry, I couldn't resist" in chat. Then the Divine Intervention thing was when they were trying to get their loot off Vashj #1 while Vashj #2 had spawned. And now that Vashj is fixed and the top guilds are on to Black Temple, it's sort of a moot point anyway. As proven with Overrated, guilds who truly cheat will get found out eventually. What do you think?
