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WoW.com's April Fools Round-up
April Fools! Or at least it was yesterday. Some love the pranks, some find the pranks boring, some wish to see the pranks fall down a dark, dark hole, never to return, possibly to be eaten by a grue. Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, we've gathered a short list of Blizzard and WoW-related pranks across the web: Blizzard Pranks World of Warcraft EPEEN: New from Blizzard, the Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number system! WoW Armory Tuskarr Invasion: Folks checking out the armory may have noticed their characters transformed to tuskarr, their achievements reported as 'cheesed,' and a whole lot of gear ninjaed and summarily vendored Battle.net Matchmaking Service: Battle.net decides to play eHarmony and place lonely gamers with suitable partners Battle.net Neural Interface: New from the Blizzard Store, the Neural Interface promises a lifelike gaming experience Blizzard Mobile Games: Up for 2010 from Blizzard Mobile Games are Blackthorne 2: Thorne Harder, and Queen's Quest! Diablo Gamer Blanket and Body Pillow: Wave goodbye to the cold as best as you can while swaddled in this Diablo 'gamer blanket!' Diablo Deckard Cain GPS System: Now you can listen to Deckard drone while you drive! Other WoW-related sites El's Extreme Anglin': El reports on the latest Cataclysm feature: Aquariums! MMO-Champion/Paragon/Premonition: MMO-Champion breaks the news that Paragon will be moving to US servers come Cataclysm and merging with the US Guild Premonition. Sponsored by AXE! Nihilum: Nihilum breaks some rules and brings us screens and video from the Cataclysm alpha Wowhead: Wowhead, er, TACOhead brings news of a new in-game item, the Hellfire Kickin' Taco Supreme! Tankspot: Tankspot announces their change to Farmspot Warcraft Pets: Breanni fills us in on some new non-combat pet... er... features coming out in Cataclysm World of Raids: World of Raids reports on the new Observation Deck and Spectate features coming in Cataclysm The Guild: The Guild proudly announces its new foray into the world of animation! Curse.com: Curse.com fills us in on Cataclysm -- exclusively available for the IPad WoW.com: And of course, there's us. Our day was filled with takeover after takeover, from Twilight to Muscle March to Saturn Six -- we've decided to return to WoW news. For now... Love them or hate them, at least they're done for the year, right? Now we can all breathe a sigh of relief and start believing what we see again. Did you laugh? Did you see a clever prank we missed? Or did you hide indoors all day and fervently wait for it to all be over? Let us know -- and check out the gallery below for screenshots from the various sites listed above! %Gallery-89602%
Hunter deadzone is dead: new minimum range = 5 yards, not 1
It appears that the latest information from the PTR for Patch 2.3 regarding hunters' ranged attacks is incorrect, as are the cries of multitudes who feel that hunters shooting close up would be unfairly overpowered. Drysc says:There's a tooltip error, it should be "5-35 yards". We want melee and ranged to be kept separate, so that when in melee attack range you should not be able to use a ranged attack. There's some amount of 'give' there, especially in fast paced PvP which can produce some temporary gray area but that's fully known with this change. Feeding the issue of the tooltip error is a bug currently where you can indeed range attack someone while being meleed, but that's in the process of being resolved as well.When I first saw the new "1-41" range for hunters (that's with the extended-range talent "Hawk Eye") over on World of Raids, I knew that something was wrong. To let hunters use melee and ranged attacks at the same time means that they would often do better up close to their enemies rather than far away, and would go against a lot of the fundamental concepts around which the class is based. As it is, the mechanic of switching between melee and ranged attacks is one of the exciting things about being a hunter, and, now that the deadzone is dying at last, there won't be that block of frustration getting in the way between the two.
Updated info on guild banks
Does your guild run out of space, even after spending cash on a second account to run your bank alt system? Have 16,000g lying around collecting dust? Well, you're in luck, pretty soon a new feature being added to the game will change all that. Niko at WorldofRaids has posted an update on what we can expect with the guild bank feature being added to the game in Patch 2.3. Each guild will have access to six tabs, each with 98 slots of available storage space. The first tab will cost 1g to purchase, with the costs rising exponentially until you reach the sixth tab, which will cost you 10,000g. Doing the math, Niko figured out that it you will have to spend 16, 111g for all 588 slots currently available on the system as it stands on the PTR. Access seems a bit tricky. It's either a you can remove items or you can't kind of system, which means you really need to have faith in those with access. Those who do have access can also use guild funds to repair their equipment should they need to do so.Does this seem a bit expensive to you? I know it does to me. On one hand I know that with my bank alt I was full rather quickly, so all those slots will be most welcome. But I don't see anyone other than officers in my guild ponying up the cash for bank slots. So the guild banks might end up being a tough sell to the smaller guilds. I'm just not sure yet. We'll have to see.[thanks Atryd]
The latest changes on the PTR
World of Raids once again has the latest breaking news on the latest Patch 2.3 Public Test Ream changes! Today's class changes seem to be mostly happy buffs, especially for hunters and rogues and paladins, as well as a slight nerf to warriors beyond the jump. Also read on below for Guild Bank prices, New Arena Season 3 weapon models, a Field Repair Bot change, as well as a few new engineering toys.Hunters: It looks like hunters get their version of Mortal Strike after all: Aimed Shot now reduces all healing done on the target by 50% for 10 seconds, in addition to the regularly increased damage. The dead zone has not been eradicated, but it has been reduced to just about 1 yard. Why not just get rid of the dead zone and be done with it? Is Blizzard paranoid about the possibility of using melee and ranged abilities at the same time through latency bugs or something? Rogues: The rogue talent "Aggression" is being improved so that its damage bonus applies to Backstab as well as Sinister Strike and Eviscerate (at +2/4/6% with each rank). Shadowstep now has a 30 second cooldown in addition to being usable out of stealth. Its range has been changed from 0-20 yards to 8-25 yards, and its +20% damage bonus now applies to whatever special attack you make next (i.e. Sinister Strike, Hemorrhage -- even Eviscerate or Rupture). Could this make it beneficial to non-dagger rogues as well? Hemorrhage has received a huge buff: It now increases physical damage dealt to its target by up to 36 (increased from 10!), but its number of charges has been reduced from 30 to 10. This should make hemo rogues more desirable in groups, and also increase the benefit from having more than one in a raid -- but is it really enough? Paladins: The "Fanaticism" talent in the retribution tree now reduces the paladin's threat by 30% at the highest rank in addition to 15% increased critical strike chance with all judgements. The protection talent "Precision" now gives a +3% chance to hit with spells in addition to melee attacks.
The Naaru's new fashion statement
World of Raids and MMO Champion both have lists of new gear on sale, come patch 2.3, in exchange for Badges of Justice from the heroic instances, and now Karazhan and Zul'Aman raid instances as well. That's exciting, of course, but let's stop and look at these pics of the new gear for a moment, shall we?Now, naturally, this gear is designed to fit with the general trollish theme of the patch, which lots of people are understandably excited about. The armor looks pretty good as armor goes, and it definitely brings some new visual design elements to the game that haven't been represented in any previous armor sets. But, let's stop and consider for a moment just where this armor is coming from. It looks like trollish Zul'Aman armor, but do we find it in Zul'Aman? No, it's up for sale by the only known Naaru retailer, G'eras. Does its method of acquisition have anything to do with Zul'Aman whatsoever? Well... it might if your guild has finished raiding Karazhan and gathers the heroic badges in Zul'Aman soon, then yes; but if you still focus mostly on Karazhan or heroic instances, then you might very well acquire some of these armor pieces without ever visiting those Amani trolls even once.What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is the appropriation of the Amani clothing design brand by the Shat'ari Naaru in Shattrath, copied illegally by G'eras, and put on sale with no proprietary settlement with trolls they are mimicking. Who knew that the Naaru could be capable of copyright infringement? If the trolls were down with that whole "I'll see you in court!" thing, their lawyers would be all over this right now.Seriously, why is a being of pure holy light selling trollish armor with skulls and tusks and voodoo dolls on it? -- or does nobody care?
WoW Insider returns to Xfire for "Life After 70"
The good folks at Xfire have asked us back to their "Two-Handed Sword" debate club (those of you who joined us last time will remember how much fun it was), and this time they're moving us up in the world: I'm going to moderate. Yes indeedy! The topic is "Life After 70," and they've got some great guests on. Teza from World of Raids is returning as well, and because they're making a point to focus on European players this time around, Awake from Nihilum will be on, as well as Nopher from Last Resort. And the list of guests is finished off by Evilseed from the very informative Wowhead.com.The chat will be all online, so to join us, you'll have to download and install Xfire, but don't worry, it's free and extremely simple. If you do join us, you'll be able to "listen" in live, as well as join the Open room chat to talk with other players about what we're discussing (that room was even crazier than the main room last time-- I loved it). So the chat will be next Wednesday, April the 11th, at 2pm Eastern time. That's 20:00 CEST if you're in Europe-- they're giving you guys a chance to have a nice primetime even this time. Please join up with us and say hello-- I want lots of WoW Insider representation!And as I said, this time around I'm not just a guest, I'll be moderating. That means I have to ask questions, I'm pretty sure, so if you have any questions or discussion ideas you'd like me to bring to the chat, please post them in the comments below, and if I choose your question, I'll even mention your name during the chat as a WoW insider reader. Thanks! See you on Xfire next Wednesday!
WoW Radio interviews Nihilum
World of Raids has the story on WoW Radio's interview with Nihilum, WoW EU's leading guild in terms of PVE content. Awake and Ekke represent Nihilum and take us on a 90-minute audio insight into a top-tier raiding guild. Covering topics from adjusting to TBC raiding, the recent nerfs to Gruul and Magtheridon, rogues and girls and raiding guilds, and even their bad taste in music (Justin Timberlake, anyone?), it's well worth the time spent listening to it.My favorite part is when they discuss their preferred healer setup for a 25-man raid. Woo hoo!Click on through to download the MP3 from World of Raids, then come back and share what you found interesting and insightful from the interview.
Transcripts from the Xfire Debate with WoW Insider
I want to make sure and thank all the WoW Insider readers who showed up to the Xfire Debate on Wednesday night-- I know I heard from a lot of people, I've got a lot of new people on my Xfire friends list, and I definitely heard a few good shoutouts. Thanks for participating-- I think it went really well.Xfire has posted transcripts of the chat: This is the main transcript, which I participated in along with reps from World of Raids, Taverncast, and Curse Gaming-- the whole thing was moderated by Gary Whitta, a former PC Gamer editor-in-chief (who, I'm told, I tussled with during the debate, but it was all in good fun). In addition, Xfire has posted the "Open Debate" transcript, which actually has a lot more to read through, and is just as interesting, if not moreso, than the "Main Floor"-- a lot of people had a lot of good opinions about the Burning Crusade, the new instances and races, and plans for the future of Blizzard's game (player housing is apparently wanted by many).Again, if you came by to see it, thanks for your support, and a big thanks to Xfire for hosting the whole thing (and especially to Xfire's Matt Gilman for setting everything up). Their Debate Club is supposed to be a regular feature, so while it'll probably be a while before they cover WoW again, it's definitely worth it to check back in with them to see what's coming up next.
WoW Insider coming to Xfire on January 31st
Xfire is a gaming chat program (like Steam or Xbox Live, they allow you to create friends lists and join your friends in games online, but unlike those two they also allow you to IM those friends, either in or out of game), and they're working lately on building a community around the program through a series of online chats. They recently talked with PVP creator Scott Kurtz, this week they're chatting with MC Frontalot, and at the end of the month, they're dipping all the way down to the bottom of the barrel, and chatting with-- well, me.They're starting a series of "debates" on the channel (called the Xfire Debate Club: The Two-Handed Sword), and on the 31st at 7pm EST, the very first subject is World of Warcraft. I'm going to be chatting live on there, along with representatives from Curse, World of Raids, and TavernCast. What exactly we're talking about hasn't yet been revealed to me, but I'm sure the Burning Crusade will take the spotlight (and of course I'm planning to at least sneak a few snide comments in about how Horde is better than Alliance). In fact, if you've got something you want me to try and bring up, feel free to say something in the comments here, and I'll do my best to squeeze it in.And please come check out the debate live-- you can download Xfire right here, then just fire it up January 31st at 7pm EST. And if you want to join in on the debate and ask us questions (as well as future debates, I believe), just drop an email to "xfirecontests@xfire.com" with the subject "Xfire Debate Club" and the username you create on Xfire.But even if you don't have questions to ask, please do come and watch the chat-- I'm interested to see what the guys from Curse, WoR, and TavernCast have to say, and I'm very interested to see what Xfire users have to ask about the World of Warcraft. Should be fun.
Adventures in Beta: Head, leg and shoulder enchants
Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief: you don't have to go back to Zul'Gurub to get decent head, shoulder and leg enchantments for your new Burning Crusade gear. The old days of Jindo/Bloodlord runs are over, to be replaced with a myriad of non-enchanting enchantment options, as ably documented by Macalister on World of Raids. To summarize Macalister's list, most of the shoulder enchantments come from reputation with the Aldors and the Scryers, two competing groups of casters (more on them later). Raising your reputation with one will decrease your reputation with the other, so choose wisely! Both sides offer enhancements for most stats, but in different combinations, so it's not the end of the world if you go for one reputation over the other. Head enhancements are available from a wide variety of rep grinds in the Outlands. There are a ton of resistance enchantments at honored reputation with factions, and ZG-like stat enhancers at revered reputation. The revered enhancements cost 100 gold, and are available at revered with Thrallmar/Honor Hold (healing and mana regen), The Sha'Tar (damage/healing and spell hit), Keepers of Time (defense and dodge), Lower City (strength and intellect for some reason) and Cenarion Expedition (attack power and hit). If you're looking for leg enchantments, just find your local tailor or leatherworker. Tailors who do the whole Aldor/Scryer grind can learn either healing/stam spellthread from the Aldors or damage/stam spellthread from the Scryers. They can then embroider the thread onto your pants. (Note: Remove pants before embroidery.) Melee characters can look for the leg armor that is crafted by leatherworkers. Leatherworkers can learn to create stamina/agility leg armor with Cenarion Expedition reputation, and attack power/crit leg armor with Honor Hold/Thrallmar reputation.
