2009-blizzcon
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The Light and How to Swing It: Patch 4.2 looms heavy for holy
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, and catch me weekly on the Matticast! Patch 4.2 is hot on the heels of patch 4.1 -- it's already on the PTR. We can look forward to the upcoming Firelands quest hub and raid coming out soon. As with any patch, there are plenty of class changes and balance adjustments. If there's one thing that I've learned over the years, it's that no news is good news when it comes to holy paladins and patch notes. Unfortunately, there is news. Rebuke, Divine Protection, and Divine Shield all scored new icons in the patch, which you can check out in this article's title image. Divine Protection also received a new spell effect, which is also featured above (I call it the Divine Beach Ball). Our Speed of Light talent was also modified to reduce Holy Radiance's cooldown by an extra 10 seconds (giving it an effective cooldown of 20 seconds), and the speed boost was tied to Divine Protection. Neither of these changes is actually live on the PTR, so you'll have to hold your breath for now. Also, holy paladins are slated to receive the biggest nerf any spec in this expansion.
Officers' Quarters: From the mail bag
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Hello, fellow officers! This week I'm going to try something a little bit different than usual. I tend to focus on one topic that requires a detailed analysis. However, I do receive many more questions that I never feature in the column because they have a more straightforward solution (or, at least, because I believe they have a straightforward solution). So I would write a private reply to the e-mail but never showcase the question here. I've decided to try an experiment this week and feature several of these e-mails with shorter answers. Even though they may not be the most complex situations, I think the answers will be helpful to other officers. Let me know what you think! Here's the first question. Too Many Cooks I was wondering if you could do an article on having too many cooks in the kitchen during raids. My guild is brand new, 3-4 weeks old, and we run Ulduar 10 and ToC 10 as well as Naxx 25 and Naxx 10 for the new 80s. As of right now, I am my guild's GM as well as raid leader. I have plans in the future to add an official "Raid Leader" to create events and lead some raids although I plan on still leading a few because I really enjoy it. Right now though, I have a few natural born leaders that attend my raids and it causes some problems.
Grunty the Murloc Marine arrives for DirecTV viewers
Memories of BlizzCon have started to fade over the last month, but today another reminder of the event pops up. If you watched it via DirectTV you should shortly be receiving an email letting you know that soon you too can have a Murloc Marine shadowing your character's every step. The email comes with a code and a URL to visit in order to redeem the little guy. Be careful of any phishing scams, the correct URL is http://www.blizzcon.com/pet. You must also have a Battle.net account in order to receive him.Once you have entered you code and gone through the simple redemption process the next time you log on you will have an in-game mail from Master Handler Sylvester. This will contain your special delivery of a Heavy Murloc Egg and a thank you. Grunty the Murloc Marine, we salute you. When it comes to murlocs, you are the best of the best of the best. Sir! With Honors.
Officers' Quarters: Cataclysm's guild revamp -- guild achievements
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.After Blizzard's big announcement about how they plan to improve guilds in Cataclysm, I've been examining the changes in detail. First, I wrote about the lack of guild improvements over the years and how the expansion will, for better or worse, change WoW guilds forever. Then I speculated on possible leveling system options and guild talents. This week, I'm going to look at guild achievements. Here are the announced guild achievements so far: Working as a Team: Have a grand master in every profession We Are Legendary: Complete a legendary weapon United Nations: Become Exalted with all Northrend factions Insider Trading: Trade 100,000 craftable items among guild members
Fan-created documentary about BlizzCon: An event for fans
Reader Encifer sent us a link to this excellent fan-directed documentary short about BlizzCon. Just a few days ago, I kind of panned the LA Times for treating BlizzCon as such an alien thing, but this video kind of takes a different look at the same event -- instead of coming at it from an outsider perspective and treating it as if it's something 20,000 crazy people do over a weekend, it's much more about how exciting it is to be a part of an event this big. I don't know, maybe the difference is just something I see, but this fan documentary, I think, does a really great job of showing just why BlizzCon is so great, while the LA Times piece, in my view, kind of dismissed its subjects even as it was portraying them.At any rate, Chris Nguyen did a terrific job on this -- he says that he created the short film to prepare for a few doc film classes he's going to be taking, as well as challenge his doc-making skills, and it seems like he did just that. He interviewed two of his former guildies, as well as the winner of this year's costume contest, as you can see in the video. And he says the whole thing was shot over the two days at BlizzCon and then took about eight more days to edit. Definitely a fun little film to watch, and if you've never been to BlizzCon before, it'll give you a nice look at just what it's like to show up in a hall with thousands of people who play the same games that you do every day.
The Los Angeles Times visits BlizzCon
The LA Times has a story up that's about a month late -- it tells the story of a guild meeting up at BlizzCon last month (they were actually at the Lost Bar, a place we at WoW.com know well from past meetups) and doing everything players do at BlizzCon: meet each other face to face, talk Warcraft, and enjoy everything Blizzard has set up on the convention floor. Truth be told, the experience sounds pretty tame to us -- BlizzCon is BlizzCon, it's a ton of fun, but it's not that alien of an experience to go with your ingame friends to a gaming convention.Then again, maybe we're just biased. Maybe having guildies as friends is really a fascinating thing to someone who's never done it before, and maybe the spectacle of BlizzCon really is so interesting that you can just report it in the paper. They do chat with Morgan Webb (why?) and they get one line from Blizzard COO Paul Sams, but otherwise, it's just basically the story of the Dread Pirates and their trip to BlizzCon (complete with veiled accusations of misogyny and a dictatorial guildleader -- thanks, LA Times!). To folks who don't play World of Warcraft, it might be interesting, but for most players, especially those who've been to BlizzCon already, it's mostly business as usual.
Joystiq interviews J. Allen Brack
Intrepid reporter and all-around cool guy Kevin Kelly over at Joystiq scored an interview with J. Allen Brack during the festivities at BlizzCon 2009. Just in case you're not aware, J. Allen Brack is the lead producer for our beloved World of Warcraft, having joined the team back in 2005. Kevin's a pretty smart cookie, and managed to get some great insight into the game from Brack. The interview's worth a full read, but there's a lot of insight that's worth spending some time talking about.It's not any surprise that Brack told Kevin that there's no end in sight for WoW, and that he expects the game to survive at least another 10 years. But Brack immediately followed up by saying that Blizzard has changed the way they view the franchise novels recently. Back in the day, it seems, they just let authors go wild. "Go off and create a kind of story in the world," Brack told Kevin. Now, however, it seems like the creative team is spending more time trying to make sure the novels reflect what they plan in the game, as well as vice versa. Brack confirmed that Blizzard still keeps an eye on what other games are doing, and will bring that into the World of Warcraft by giving it their own take. That comment reminded me of the discussion about upcoming Fishing changes in Cataclysm, and how the new fishing system was inspired by Animal Crossing.
WoW, Casually: A casual BlizzCon and what the future holds for us
Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn't our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn't work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that's a threat, after all, we don't have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we'd win.Usually, geeky conventions (sci fi, comic book, gaming, whatever) are considered for hardcore fans only and I guess that's pretty accurate. But while the fans at BlizzCon were certainly hardcore, their playstyles ranged everywhere from casual to leet. You don't have to raid every night to be silly about WoW and excited about the future of Azeroth.
Officers' Quarters: Cataclysm's guild revamp -- leveling and talents
Last week I talked about the massive guild overhaul unveiled at BlizzCon, and the impact these changes would have on guilds, for better or worse. This week I'd like to delve into the leveling system and guild talents. (I'll cover achievements and guild currency in a separate column later.)Currently we know that guilds will level up as players participate in the following: Boss kills Rated battlegrounds and arenas Leveling professions Increasing faction reputations Blizzard has stated that only the top 20 experience producers per day will count toward leveling. This is a smart idea. Without this limitation, I could easily see guilds recruiting every player possible just to level up quickly, and then discarding the players they don't really want once they hit level 20. Guild size should help in a small way, but it shouldn't be the determining factor of leveling progress. One other factor I'd like see contribute to guild leveling is player achievements. Many of them, particularly for Heroic dungeons and raiding, are very difficult to get without a solid guild. Aside from a few vanity items along the way, there's no great reward for racking up a ton of achievement points. Yet, well-designed achievements (i.e., not the exploring or holiday achievements) demonstrate mastery of various aspects of the game. Shouldn't your guild be rewarded for having such players? Besides, it never hurts to give players more incentive to go out and /love some squirrels.
Spiritual Guidance: What the future holds for Priests
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. What will Cataclysm hold for Priests? I'm back from Blizzcon! There's been a ton of big announcements which will mean future impacts for Priests whether you heal or dish out damage. Let's take a quick look at what we know.
Video of the Hogger live raid at BlizzCon
Michael Gray mentioned it in his writeup of the Premonition live raid at BlizzCon 2009, but this is a moment so epic it's worth mentioning again, and now that there's video online, you can see it: in the final fight, none other than Hogger appeared to take on one of the best guilds in the game. And this was no mere Hogger, nor even the slightly-more-powerful Memory of Hogger seen in the Trial of Champions. No no -- this thing was a foul raid boss from the bowls of Deepholm, a one-shotting maniac that couldn't be controlled even by the best tank. As you can see in the video above, he charges like an angry Rhino -- he was originally pulled by a Hunter who was then one-shot so fast the aggro table cleared and Hogger reset instantly. And after the raid changed their collective pants, they took him on again, and it was all over but the Gnoll snickering.He was immune to taunt, and he appeared to just pick a target at random, pinging around the raid like Batman beating up bad guys in his recent videogame. He only had about 600 hit points (some say 666, which would make sense), but he was immune to damage, or at least all forms of damage that Premonition tried to throw at him. In the end, even though they'd beaten Thaddius, Anub'Rekhan, and Patchwerk all at once, this level 80 Heroic version of Hogger was the one who wiped them. I saw Ozzy do War Pigs, but this Hogger fight was probably the most epic thing I saw in Anaheim last weekend.
BlizzCon 2009: Wow.com interviews Richard Knaak
On the second day of BlizzCon 2009, I got the chance to sit down with Richard Knaak, best selling author of countless novels, including many in the Warcraft universe, such as the War of the Ancients Trilogy, Day of the Dragon, and Night of Dragon. His upcoming projects include the Stormrage novel, as well as the Dragons of Outland manga trilogy. We talked about all this and more, and you can read our conversation below.So of course, the big thing on everyone's mind is the new Stormrage book. How's it coming along? Is it near completion?It's near completion, we're in the editing process, getting the OKs from Blizzard. You can find an excerpt in the latest volume of the Legends Manga, along with a story I wrote, sort of a Prologue that ties in with the book.Can you give us a sneak preview of what to expect lore-wise?You know Blizzard likes to keep these secret, so I am going to be very limited in what I can talk about. It is Malfurion. It is about the Nightmare. And it is very current. That's the three biggest things I can say about it right off the bat. You'll see characters you know from the game and obviously from other books, and places you know from the game, and it's very current, very relevant. Of course, that's about all I can say. You know Blizzard, they love their secrets!
BlizzCon 2009 Insider Trader: Cataclysmic professions part two
A week has passed since BlizzCon 2009 and we're still digging up more news, getting clarification from the blues, and analyzing all of the panels. Last week, Insider Trader discussed some of the major professions-related features coming up in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the next expansion pack. Pass through the break to learn all about: Profession racial abilities and how they will be changing. The new direction for Alchemy. A totally revamped Fishing system! Archaeology details and speculation about the leveling process. The evolution of Inscription. Then, continue on to part three of this discussion to learn more about: Reforging and (not) repairing our own gear. Woodworking. Profession specializations and the new direction for differentiation.
BlizzCon 2009: First impressions of Cataclysm races
For those interested in the subject, I've no doubt you've managed to pour through all of our Cataclysm-related coverage during BlizzCon. But lists of racial abilities and descriptions of starting zones only go so far in telling you what the Goblins and Worgen are really like. So now that BlizzCon's come to a close and the WoW.com team has had a chance to mull over time spent with the latest expansion we're going to give you what you really want to know about Cataclysm's new races: our honest impressions. Personally, I think Alex and Daniel's thoughts on the Worgen starting zone sums everything up:Alex: TOP HATS Daniel: FREAKING AWESOME TOP HATSBut for completeness' sake, the rest of the team's thoughts are below.
BlizzCon in the rearview
BlizzCon 2009 is behind us, and over on the forums, Irhabi has reached the conclusion that he won't be going next year. He says that with everything streaming out onto DirecTV and the Internet, and with no beta access included, and (what he thought was) a less than stellar performance by Ozzy Osbourne, he might as well stayed at home. I don't particularly share his opinion -- there are lots of great reasons to go to BlizzCon, from getting to try out the latest builds of Blizzard's upcoming games, to meeting vendors and other fans on the floor, to getting the chance to ask your own questions of the devs (and maybe even meet some of them at the various parties around Anaheim). If you're just bummed that BlizzCon was lame because you didn't get a beta key this year, maybe you should have wandered the show floor a little bit.On the other side of it, the folks who bought the DirecTV stream at home are a little more split on the subject -- we twittered to get some responses, and they run the gamut from "yes, it was worth it with the pet," to "no, they should have covered WoW more" (not only did the feed cut off halfway through the contest on Friday night -- we later heard from DirecTV employees that they could only broadcast a certain number of hours over the weekend, and that's where they made the cut -- but they also skipped a few big WoW panels for Starcraft coverage on the main stage instead). And don't even get us started on Jo Garcia, lovely and well-meaning though she may be (though Jay Mohr doesn't deserve the crap he's getting -- he did a respectable job this year). Fortunately, there were lots of other outlets to get your WoW news from, and odds are that Grunty will soothe your pains from the $40 you might feel you've wasted.
BlizzCon 2009: Tokyopop creates stories about the little guys
While wandering about the floor at BlizzCon, I stopped over at the TokyoPop Manga booth and spoke a bit with editor Troy Lewter, who we've talked to before.. Currently, the big series they write for the world of Azeroth is the Warcraft Legends series, which is on its 4th volume with a 5th due out next month.Talking with Troy and other members of the Tokyopop team at the booth, what I was most struck with was the passion for the work and the universes of Blizzard's games that they display, and, perhaps more importantly, to the art and stories they tell.Troy laid out three important concepts that they follow in creating the mangas: Telling a solid story, focusing on a few characters, and cross-pollinating with other forms of media.In telling a solid story, the aim is to create the story such that you don't need to rely on the Warcraft world and characters, per se. In short, even if the story wasn't about Thrall or Varian or the Scarlet Crusade or anything else, you could still connect with the characters themselves.
BlizzCon 2009: Laguna Art Museum VIP dinner (Attn: Lore nerds)
When I found out that my friend Joe Gilbert AKA Kyliaar from the U.S. realm Destromath was attending the Laguna Art Museum VIP dinner on the eve of BlizzCon, I said "Get pictures and ask questions!" Happily, he did both. For those of you who don't know, Blizzard held a benefit dinner for the Laguna Art Museum, which is also currently hosting a WoW art exhibit. Attendees got to choose a Blizzard personality to speak with at their table, bid on Blizzard art and hang out with the biggest Blizzard names. Following is an excerpt from my chat with Joe about the event (I've tried to edit out most of the fangirl swooning), as well as a gallery of his photographs.%Gallery-71059%
BlizzCon 2009: Bingo fail
So close... and yet so far. As you can see, our BlizzCon bingo didn't quite win this year -- even if you count Chris Metzen's regular glasses as non-sunglasses, and even if you just plain assume that the "coffee" in Ghostcrawler's cup on Saturday morning was actually gin (I saw him drinking whiskey, but not gin, unfortunately -- not sure why I didn't just buy the guy a drink), our BlizzCon card didn't score again ths year. There was no actor announced for the WoW movie (though if Tricia Helfer does get a part, we might call that one even), Diablo III trilogy plans weren't announced, and we didn't hear anything at all about another iPhone app or the new MMO. Sad trumpet indeed.But there's always next year. Thanks for playing. If you did actually get a bingo this year, let us know exactly how (I don't remember any devs ever saying "soon, TM," but I was away from the panels a lot this year). Maybe next year we won't make the bingo card quite so heroic, but then again, who doesn't love a good challenge? We won't nerf something we're just doing for fun.%Gallery-5359%
BlizzCon 2009: 15 Minutes on the Street
There are all kinds of people at BlizzCon, and the vast majority of them aren't developers or exhibitors -- they're players and Blizzard fans just like you who come out to see what Blizzard's got to show them. We spent a large amount of time this weekend talking to devs and exhibitors and gathering information, but we definitely also wanted to speak with players as well -- see what they thought of the show and how their experience went.Of course we talked with more players than we could ever fit here -- we ended up having over 1200 people stop by our meetup on Thursday night (and I did my best to shake hands with as many of them as I could), and all weekend long, players came up to us and said hi, telling us their classes and spec and what they liked and didn't like about the show and our site. Here's four small interviews that we had with players at the show, done by Robin Torres and I. It's just one tiny look at a few people walking around the 'Con, but it should give you a little insight into what the mood was like last weekend.
BlizzCon 2009: The Guild's Michele Boyd and Jeff Lewis Worgen hands-on
Sitting in a convention booth all weekend at BlizzCon can actually be a pretty boring prospect. Sure, it's probably a lot of fun meeting people, and sure, unlike a certain team of bloggers, you're probably not run off your feet trying to gather up tons of pictures and information and experiences to write about. But think about it: you're in a booth, signing pictures and DVDs, stuck in the same 20 square feet all weekend long, with all of the promise of BlizzCon around you but just out of reach.Such, we imagined, was the plight of the cast of The Guild last weekend at BlizzCon, so when we heard that Michele Boyd (who plays "stupid tall hot girl" Riley in the show) and Jeff Lewis (who plays the singular Vork) both had 80s in the current game, we decided that instead of doing a normal boring interview with them, we'd give them a break: we'd take them over to the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm playable demo and let them have a go at the brand new Worgen starting area. It was the least we could do, given that they hadn't had any time to play yet.And in return, they gave us their impressions of the new starting area, had some fun finding kids in a cornfield, and talked about how and why they play the game. Read on for more.
