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Digital preorders for Mists of Pandaria available soon?
While we've heard nothing concrete, evidence continues to accumulate that a Mists of Pandaria digital preorder will be available sooner rather than later. The latest reveal was spotted by one of our eagle-eyed commenters, who notes that the blank box art listed next to a PTR account on Battle.net has been replaced by an actual Mists box. (Incidentally, this also means that the leaked box art we saw a month ago was apparently right on the money.) That's not all, however. Another sharp-eyed commenter noticed that Cataclysm-level accounts now have the little green arrow next to them, indicating that they're eligible for an upgrade. Unfortunately, trying to upgrade the account fails; when I tried, it indicates only my Starter Edition is eligible. Still, it's exciting to see the pieces fall into place. What about you? Are you planning on buying digital or retail this time around? It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Get your faction change at 25% off through the weekend
Have you been wondering what life is like on the other side of the faction fence? Blizzard has offered faction changes for quite some time now, allowing players to flip factions at their whim. This weekend, Blizzard's holding a sale offering 25% off faction changes. Please note that a faction change isn't a realm change -- it's just switching from Alliance to Horde on your current realm. However, this change does make things quite handy for cross-faction trading, plus it opens up a whole new side of questing and exploration to do. Before you jump to make the move, however, you may want to check out Blizzard's FAQ on the faction change service and give it a read. There are a few things that switch over when you change factions, like mounts and titles, and a few things that are wiped out all together, like Argent Tournament achievements. If this sounds like a steal and you'd like to get in on the deal, better hurry -- the sale ends on Monday, July 16 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.
Now approaching two years of Real ID -- did it work?
It's been just about two years since the Real ID feature was introduced to World of Warcraft. This feature unintentionally created some of the hottest debates when it was introduced, largely because it meant the friends you chatted with on Real ID would be able to see your first and last name. The topic became even more heated when it was announced that player's real names would be automatically shown on Blizzard's forums, something that went over like a lead balloon. I mentioned from the beginning, on a quiet post on my old blog (Warning: language) that while I thought the feature was interesting enough, it wasn't interesting enough for me to use it. So where do I stand, two years later? I have exactly five people on my Real ID, and they're all coworkers with one exception, a friend I wanted to help out on a cross-server raid. I still don't care for Real ID, but it does come in handy every now and again. I'm still not going to use it widely. So two years after all the roaring, screeching, and general madness ... how did Real ID go over? Was it a success?
More Mists of Pandaria beta passes may be on the way
We're currently receiving reports that more Mists of Pandaria beta passes are being issued -- with a twist. Because all Annual Pass subscribers have received their beta invites, this round is going to those that did not purchase an Annual Pass. If you've registered your interest in beta access on your WoW account, you may have gotten in as well. Please note: if you receive an email notification that you have a beta invite, don't click any links in the email. Just go to Battle.net, log in, and check your accounts to see if you indeed have beta access. And if you are granted beta access, you may want to check our gigantic amount of Mists of Pandaria beta coverage to catch up on what's changed, what's gone, what's new, and what's incredibly cool. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Zarhym clarifies account-wide achievements
Ghostcrawler did a pretty good job explaining the upcoming account-wide achievements, but some players still have questions regarding both achievements and account-wide mounts, as well. Community Manager Zarhym (@CM_Zarhym on Twitter) further clarified the account-wide achievement and mount system earlier, as well as clearing the air about the question regarding account-wide reputation. Zarhym We don't want to make reputation account-wide. We think that removes too much of the gameplay of having an alt. Harkening back to the blog, the goal is for players to feel free to play their alts. If you have a cool mount on character A, then that might be an issue. Being exalted on character A so that enchants are easier to buy doesn't seem like the same issue. (What I mean is, it's a short step from there to saying character A has better gear so you aren't going to play B). We can understand where the desire to have reputations function in this way stems from, however. For this reason faction rep is going to work a little differently in Mists of Pandaria and, we think, will feel better for players with multiple characters. source While we don't know exactly how faction reputation is going to work as of yet in Mists, it's nice to see that Blizzard is addressing the concerns of those with multiple alts. But the biggest question so far regarding account-wide achievements and mounts is what exactly the definition of "account-wide" is. Is it account-wide or Battle.net-account-wide? The wise floating skull cleared that one up for us, too.
Blizzard introduces Dial-in Authenticator
If you do not have an authenticator or mobile authenticator on your account, Blizzard has just introduced an alternative. The Dial-in Authenticator, now available for those without authenticators, is a new Battle.net feature that will hopefully help those players who don't have some sort of authenticator already on their account. Here's how it works. When you sign up, you'll be asked to make a toll-free call from a specific phone of your choosing to authorize login attempts with the battle.net account. You get to assign the phone number that is used, and if there is something unusual about the login attempt on your account, you'll be asked to call the toll-free number to verify you are you. An example of unusual activity would be playing from a different location than you normally do. In other words, if a keylogger gets hold of your account information and attempts to log in, they'll be prompted to call the number -- and they won't be able to go any further, because they don't have your phone and they don't have your PIN. You will only be asked to call if it's an unusual login -- otherwise, you can continue to log in and play with no worries. The Dial-in Authenticator is currently only open to U.S. residents, and it only covers World of Warcraft accounts -- although Blizzard may update it to cover more countries in the future, as well as StarCraft 2 accounts. In order to sign up for the Dial-in Authenticator, you must log into your account on Battle.net, then go to Security Options and choose to add the Dial-in Authenticator. If you already have an authenticator on your account, you must remove it in order to sign up for the dial-in service; you cannot use more than one security method at a time. For more information on the service, check out the official FAQ on Blizzard's website.
Battle.net authenticators limited to one account
Blizzard is changing up the security on their authenticators a bit. This isn't a major change and shouldn't affect that many people. Starting now, if you happen to have multiple Battle.net accounts (not multiple WoW accounts under one Battle.net account), then each account must have its own authenticator. This means if you have separate Battle.net logins for zergrush@somedomain.com and taurenfever@example.com and you want to use an authenticator, you'll need to buy two. If you've just got taurenfever@example.com and all of your games are under that Battle.net login, then you're perfectly fine. This is not retroactive. If you already have two accounts linked to a single authenticator, everything will still work as it does right now until you unlink that authenticator. The full blue post detailing the changes is behind the cut below.
Real ID and Battle.net get expanded privacy settings
Blizzard has come through with its promise of updated and more expansive options for its controversial Real ID feature, connecting Blizzard's games through use of real names as identifiers. The new options allow you to opt out of being listed in the "Friends of Friends" of other users, to deactivate the ability to be seen in Starcraft II's Facebook feature, or to turn off Real ID altogether. To change your Battle.net privacy options, log in to your account's Battle.net management page and select Settings, then Communication Preferences. Now all we need is an "go invisible" feature on Real ID, like most instant message clients have, and I'll be a happy Real ID user. The full announcement by Nethaera is below: Nethaera -- New Battle.net Privacy Settings We'd like to make you aware of the new Real ID-related privacy options we've introduced to Battle.net. These options provide Real ID users with additional tools for customizing the service based on their preferences, enabling the ability to opt in or out of the Real ID "Friends of Friends" and "Add Facebook Friends" features or to turn off Real ID altogether. Real ID offers an optional, convenient way for keeping in touch with real-world friends you know and trust, whether they're playing World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, or one of our future games. The "Friends of Friends" and "Add Facebook Friends" features provide you with even more options to stay connected while you play by making it easier for real-life friends to locate each other on Battle.net. You can easily enable or disable these features through your Battle.net privacy settings by logging in to your Battle.net account at http://www.battle.net/. source
Blizzard responds to common Real ID concerns
Nethaera (Blizzard community manager) posted answers to some of the common Real ID questions and concerns on the forums today. With the PR disaster that was Blizzard's original Real ID on the forums concept, a follow-up aimed at easing tensions in the community -- even after the retraction -- was to be expected. While Blizzard offered some good news on things people have been requesting, they also dodged other points for the moment in true Blizzard style. Some highlights from the announcement: no current plans for an online handle to be used in game with Real ID instead of your name feature to disable your name's appearance in Friends of Friends list coming around the time of StarCraft II plans for some sort of unique ID on the WoW forums The full announcement is after the break.
New Battle.net site is live
The URL may include the word "beta," but the new Battle.net site is live and seems to be fully functional. Some changes we've noticed at first glance are: Complete change to the interface and navigation. You can check a box to stay logged in. It gives the status of their franchises. What's not there: an ability to chat with Real ID friends from the browser. Ah well. We don't know as of yet when the old Battle.net site will be phased out, but we'll keep you posted.
Patch 3.3.5 PTR: Battle.net Real ID system
After several tries at character copies, extended-extended downtime and Battle.net issues, we've been able to hop onto the public test realm and play around with the new Real ID features. We were able to grab a lot of screenshots of the new chat features. Now, if you're not familiar with the Real ID system, I'll give you a quick summation. If you have a real-life person you know who also plays Blizzard games and you would like to keep in touch with them despite realm, faction or even game (Diablo III, StarCraft II or World of Warcraft), then you can now add them in a social media-type format with announcement, statuses and cross-realm/faction/game whispers. This is not something you want to do with someone you've only ever known in game. The reason you don't want to do this with just anybody is that you will be using your Battle.net email login. If you happen to try out this feature on the PTR, please note that we're still in an early test realm build and there are still a lot of bugs in the system. This means you're going to get Lua errors off of the default interface, and the Battle.net server managing your friends list is often down as they're tweaking things behind the scenes. It's the test realm; it's meant to test things. So don't take its stability as a sign of what the functionality will be like when the patch hits the live realms. %Gallery-92839%
Blizzard bans 320,000 WarCraft III and Diablo II players
Blizzard appears to be cleaning house in preparation for its StarCraft II release as well as its Battle.net revamp. In a recent announcement on the service's forums, Blizzard rep Bashiok revealed that over 300,000 accounts were punished for violations of the terms of service for Warcraft III and Diablo II for using hacks and illegal third-party tools (which are essentially hacks). For those of you who have had past experience with Battle.net, these numbers probably don't surprise you. The network has had a long reputation of being fairly easy on people using hacks as Blizzard tends to save up over a long period of time in order to do a massive batch of bans at once. This means that those who are using hacks have a long period of time to abuse the system before anything is done about it. The hacks for some games were rampant enough that other players began using hacks that detect other hacks. Regardless of the reason behind using a hack, it is still against the terms of service and means if you get caught, you're out.
World of Warcraft Arena Tournament 2010 registration open
It's official: registration for the 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament is now open! Like last year's arena tournament, players will participate on regional tournament realms -- separate from live realms -- for a spot to play at the live events. The arena tournament will use the 3v3 arena format for teams, and the regular arena season on live servers will not be interrupted by this event. The cost of registration is one payment of $20 per eligible World of Warcraft account. For more information on eligibility and restrictions, check out the Arena Tournament rules page. This year's cash prizes, including prizes awarded at both the regional finals and world championship, amount to over $200,000. But even if you don't win the big prizes, there's still something out there for participants -- players who have participated in at least 50 rated tournament games on one character with the same team will be eligible for Murkimus, the gladiator murloc pet that players may remember from last year's tournament. Please note that as of patch 3.3.3, Murkimus is an account-wide pet that will apply to all WoW characters on your Battle.net account. Players who have a character in one of the top 1,000 teams and have participated in at least 100 rated tournament games during the last four weeks will also receive the Vanquisher title for their live characters level 71 and over. While the news may be good for players that missed out on last year's games, some have expressed disappointment that there was no new pet and title for this year. Zarhym addressed this in a post on the Arena Tournament forums: Zarhym While it would be cool to provide a new pet, we're not necessarily trying to encourage as many people as possible to pay $20 and sign up for this tournament ultimately because they want a new pet. It's a nice perk to encourage people, but we don't want the Arena Tournament to be a more complicated version of the Pet Store. We want players who are serious about competing to sign up for the tournament, not just a reason to take in more money through offering a new vanity pet with each new tournament. source So for those of you looking for a new pet -- sorry, looks like that's not in the cards this year. But for players who missed out on the pet last year and players who would like a chance at the cash that Blizzard is paying out, you can sign up for the fun and games on Blizzard's website.
Patch 3.3.3: Account changes for Murkimus
Gladiators, rejoice! Or at least those of you that participated in the 2009 Arena Tournament -- Murkimus, gladiator murloc extraordinaire has been changed as of today's patch. The pet, which was previously only available on whatever character you used the code with, will now apply to your entire Battle.net account. So if you claimed your Murkimus on one character, be prepared to receive a surprise in the mail on your other characters when you log in. Watch your fingers, that spear is sharp. Here's the full announcement: Bashiok With the release of patch 3.3.3 those who received the Murkimus pet for their participation in the 2009 Arena Tournament will notice that the pet is being changed to apply to their entire Battle.net account and all associated World of Warcraft licenses. If you previously claimed a Murkimus code for one character on an account this change will mean that all characters on that account, as well as characters on any other World of Warcraft licenses registered to the same Battle.net account, will receive a Murkimus in their in-game mailboxes. With this change you'll finally be able to play any of your characters, stand up defiantly, and exclaim "I'm Murkimus!" source So Gladiators, enjoy your pet -- on whatever character you'd like. I'll be over here, wishing I'd participated in it!
Friendly reminder from WoW.com: Convert to Battle.net now!
In two weeks time, on November 11 (November 12th for EU folks), all World of Warcraft players will be required to have a Battle.net account in order to access the game. The reminder has been counting down on the game's log-in screen for the past week, urging players to create an account on Battle.net merge it with their World of Warcraft accounts, with the promise of a cute little penguin to sweeten the deal. As if the threat of being unable to play the game weren't enough. Blizzard has big plans for their new Battle.net upgrade, which they announced during BlizzCon 2009, and the mandatory merge works towards their long-term goals for all their games. Exciting features such as cross-realm, cross-faction, and even cross-game chat will be part of the new Battle.net, which some people have pointed out is reminiscent of XBox LIVE. Of course, we at WoW.com are dedicated to making sure you make the merge because aside from wanting our readers to cozy up to monochromatic, flightless birds, having them locked out from the game we talk about on the site all the time is kind of a lose-lose situation for everybody. So hey, two weeks to go. Merge that baby.
The pros and cons of Battle.net
Well it's finally happened -- as of next month, you'll be required to have a Battle.net login to get into the game, so you might as well head over and merge your account up right now. It's not like we have a choice in the matter any more, but that doesn't mean lots of players still have apprehensions about the process. Naissa puts some of the concerns together clearly over on her blog -- putting all of her accounts under one username scares her, and that's a legit point. Not only can Blizzard presumably cut access to all of their games for just one (or even one false positive) ToS violation, but presumably, one hacker could now gain access to all of your Blizzard games with one hack. The online profile is another concern -- Bungie already has something like this running with Halo, and from my online profile, you can see clearly just how bad I am. With the Armory, there's a level of anonymity (you can't see your account name, just character names), but if Blizzard starts posting profiles under account names -- or even worse, "Real IDs," which are apparently real names -- that's one more layer of separation lost. Surely, they'll have to have a way to opt out of that.Of course, the changeover isn't all bad.
Day one of BlizzCon 2009: Round-up
Well, folks, the first day of BlizzCon went by in a blur, and we're still bouncing about all the stuff that was announced yesterday. If you don't want to slog through a ton of entries to get the TL:DR version, we've prepped a recap for you that'll take you to the highlights: WORLD OF WARCRAFT: OH SNAP: A little expansion by the name of Cataclysm was officially announced, with a world of pain now on its way to classic Azeroth and two new races. The official FAQ can be read here (and also on the official site) and we blogged through a look at the new starting zones and quests. All haters, disbelievers, skeptics, muggers, druggers, post-modernists, and trolls, we are graciously willing to accept your apologies. Line forms to the left, people. No pushing! And mister, I hope you brought enough gum for everybody. NEW FEATURES: These include the new races, Goblins and Worgen (Horde and Alliance respectively), the reordering and rezoning of much of Azeroth, an array of new race/class possibilities, a brand-new secondary skill, and some shake-ups in class mechanics and character/guild advancement. BATTLE.NET: Battle.net will gain new features in the expansion, including an XBox-Livesque ability to see what your friends are playing and which servers they're on, in addition to sending messages to them. PICTURES: Here's a map of the reordered post-Cataclysm Azeroth, a gallery of the art display at BlizzCon (containing some Cataclysm art, employee-decorated noobz, and Starcraft and Diablo universe pieces), a dedicated gallery for Cataclysm concept art, and a gallery of the costumes at BlizzCon. VIDEOS: We have video for you of the Cataclysm trailer, what Azeroth zones will look like post-Cataclysm, and the animation for Human-to-Worgen transformation. THE GUILD: The entire cast showed up and brought the funny at their live panel and at our reader meet-up. Gallery here! %Gallery-70668%%Gallery-70682%%Gallery-70630%%Gallery-70696% 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!
Blizzard is spying on you again
People who put way too much energy into watching the flickering messages that scroll past when you log in to WoW, as well as people with slow connections, may be familiar with the message "Submitting non-personal system information." Basically, Blizzard wants to know things like what kind of CPU and GPU you're running on and how much RAM and VRAM you have. Aguilar (who?) has made a blue post letting us know that they're going to start another round of collecting such data "in the very near future." If you're not on a Battle.net account yet, you'll see that message about non-personal information. Battle.net users, however, won't see the message, but they will be sending info up the line. Yet another in a long line of injustices for us B.net account holders: no flickering message! I demand a free month of WoW in compensation.
Battle.net Authenticator iPhone app now available in Europe
These things sometimes take a while, but Blizzard has finally made the Battle.net authenticator app available in the European iTunes stores (you can download it here). As with the NA version, the app is a freebie and designed to add an extra layer of security to your account thanks to a random number generator.We've already posted a hands-on look at the app and I had a quick play with it while writing this post. It seems really easy to use once you sync the app to your Battle.net account and there's something very special about seeing the Blizzard logo pop up on my iPhone. The app should also work on the iPod Touch and is available now, so if you've already merged your WoW account then this might well be the app for you. I certainly carry my iPhone around with me more than my keys so this little app is a very welcome addition.
WoW and Battle.net merge now available in Europe
Here in Europe, we've been waiting patiently, watching as the Americans frolic with their shiny new Battle.net merged WoW accounts. Blizzard has just updated the news section of the European site with a welcome announcement. European players will now be able to finally merge their Battle.net and World of Warcraft accounts into one shiny new entity.The process takes about a minute and, after a cool sound effect, you'll see Wrath of the Lich King appear in your games section. The only thing you need to remember is you will need to put in the email address associated with your Battle.net account in the WoW login screen rather than your user name. So, without further ado, go forth and merge!
