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Li'l KT on sale for one week only
Blizzard announced this morning that the Lord of Naxxramas' miniature alter ego is on sale for just one week for €5 or £4 from the battle.net pet store. If last week's Battle Chest sale is anything to go by, a US sale will follow with a discount, making KT probably available for $5 to US customers. KT is a battle pet, of the undead family, and is strong against humanoids and mechanicals. He has various abilities including a Death and Decay, and a Drain Life-esque heal called Siphon Life. He is, alas, weak against aquatic pets. You could put him in a team with Mr. Bigglesworth, that might cheer him up! He also automatically takes out critters when he's near to them, so if your guild doesn't have Critter Kill Squad yet, KT is a valuable asset. Even if his demonic cackling can grow a little tiresome, he's a great deal for only €5. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Blizzard celebrates 7 years in Europe with 50% off for a limited time
EU players will be happy to know that for the seventh anniversary of World of Warcraft in Europe, Blizzard has slashed the price of World of Warcraft yet again, bringing the cost of WoW down even lower for a limited time. Remember, United States and assorted North American nations, these are EU copies and versions of the game. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- lowering the cost of the barrier to entry to WoW is not a choice but rather a grave necessity. When 90 levels starts looking like a lot of content and too big of an endeavor for a new player, it doesn't matter how good the 85-to-90 content is, because people will never see it. The last thing you want is for price to be an issue when there are so many other factors to consider about the relative uniqueness of the MMO industry. Here are the EU seventh anniversary sale prices: World of Warcraft Battle Chest EUR 7,49 £4.99 World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King EUR 9,99 £7.49 World of Warcraft: Cataclysm EUR 14,99 £12.49 World of Warcraft mount: Celestial Steed mount EUR 10,00 £8.50 World of Warcraft pet: Lil'K.T. EUR 5,00 £4.50 Hit up the EU Blizzard store to get these deals while they last. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
The Twelve Days of Winter Veil: Day two
What better way to celebrate the new year than winning a World of Warcraft in-game pet? WoW.com is giving them away to two lucky winners. Yes, you can have your own Lil K.T. or Panderan Monk to follow you on your travels in Azeroth. The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 12pm ET (noon) Saturday, January 2, 2010. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be one of the winners. You may enter only once and two winners will be selected randomly. Each winner will receive 1 World of Warcraft Pet (their choice of Lil K.T. or Pandaren Monk) with a retail value of US$10. Click here to read the official contest rules. Be on the look out for the final giveaways tomorrow and don't forget to wish your loved ones a happy New Year! EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!
The Twelve Days of Winter Veil: Day nine - in-game pets
Today being Christmas, WoW.com will be celebrating with three (count them three!) Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests. For the first one, we are giving away a World of Warcraft in-game pet to two lucky winners. Yes, you can have your own Lil K.T. or Panderan Monk to follow you on your travels in Azeroth. The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 12pm ET (noon) Saturday, December 26, 2009. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be one of the winners. You may enter only once and two winners will be selected randomly. Each winner will receive 1 World of Warcraft Pet (their choice of Lil K.T. or Pandaren Monk) with a retail value of US$10. Click here to read the official contest rules. Be on the look out for two more giveaway contests today and don't forget to wish your loved ones a happy holiday! EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!
The Twelve Days of Winter Veil: Day twelve
WoW.com is celebrating Winter Veil in the best way we can think of -- by giving away great holiday gifts! For the next twelve days we will be giving away a wide assortment of phat loot to you, the loyal readers of our site. And to kick off our countdown of the Twelve Days of Winter Veil contests, we are giving away a World of Warcraft in-game pet to two lucky winners. Yes, you can have your own Lil K.T. or Panderan Monk to follow you on your travels in Azeroth. The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 12pm ET (noon) Wednesday, December 23, 2009. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be one of the winners. You may enter only once and two winners will be selected randomly. Each winner will receive 1 World of Warcraft Pet (their choice of Lil K.T. or Pandaren Monk) with a retail value of US$10. Click here to read the official contest rules. And if you don't win today (or even if you do!) check back later today for loot card giveaways and tomorrow for more contests -- the prizes only get better as we count down the Twelve Days of Winter Veil! EDIT: Contest closed. Thanks everyone!
WoW.com's top ten stories of 2009
What a year it's been for the World of Warcraft. We've had three big content patches, a BlizzCon, an expansion announcement, and perhaps out of all of the five years this game has been running, this was the year with the most surprises. A few things players thought would never happen (including faction changes) finally did, and we saw quite a few new tricks from Blizzard, both in terms of game features and in the way they run the game at large. 2009 was also a year of expectation: we thrilled to leaks and rumors about Cataclysm, and all year long, we looked forward to the villian that has been set up for us ever since 2008's Wrath release: the Lich King himself. As we've done for the past couple of years, let's take a look back at the most popular stories of 2009 here on WoW.com. We'll start first with number 10, which also came as a surprise to many players, right after the break.
The Queue: A trip down memory lane
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky be your host today. Let's get meta here folks. Zetathran asked a question about the history of this site, and it got me into a conversation with our Editor-in-Chief Liz Harper about the activities of old. WoW.com has a changed a lot in the past few years, and while the long dialog we had about past policies and editorial standards is probably of no interest but ourselves, the basic story of the site probably is, so we'll start off with that. Zetathran asked... "How did WoW Insider start? Who were the original bloggers?"
Pandaren pet "sold out" on Blizzard store [Updated]
In an unexpected and strange twist in Blizzard's latest microtransaction saga, the Pandaren Monk vanity pet has apparently sold out on the Blizzard pet store. A mere week after the in-game pets were announced for sale on Blizzard's new pet store, the Pandaren Monk can no longer be purchased on US realms (as of this writing, it is still available on the Blizzard EU and Blizzard KR stores). That the Pandaren Monk would sell out comes as a surprise because, well, it's a virtual item. It's like Agent Smith. It never runs out. Unless, of course, Blizzard designed it that way, in which case there must have been a massive failure of communication somewhere down the line because it doesn't say anything about the Pandaren Monk being a limited item anywhere. It's also notable that Blizzard had committed to donating 50% of all proceeds from Pandaren Monk sales to the Make-a-Wish Foundation all the way through December 31. If the Pandaren Monk were to disappear, it should at least be expected to last until the end of 2009, right? We think this is an inventory error, where some number had to be inserted into the Blizzard Store's inventory management system, like some number "over 9000". Likely this will be easily corrected, and when it is, we'll update this post accordingly. UPDATE 11:30am ET: Blizzard is looking into the matter, which should assuage most people's fears that the item is indeed sold out. UPDATE 2:00pm ET: The Pandaren Monk is now back in stock and available for purchase! It was just a glitch in the Matrix, people. Nothing to see here. Thanks to Papa Shok for the tip.
The Daily Quest: Poor Mr. Bigglesworth
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Mania of Mania's Arcania has some interesting ideas as to what Blizzard should do with Hunter pets to improve them and the whole system around them. I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds Spirit Beasts a little odd. Blog Azeroth's shared topic this week is, "Relationships within Azeroth." Check out what many bloggers had to say about it! World of Matticus's Mimetir has kicked off a two part series on his 10 golden rules of raid leading. You asked, The Stoppable Force answered. What happens when Lil' KT and Mr. Bigglesworth are stuck in a room together? Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Blizzard pet store now regional
In a short (but not necessarily sweet) announcement, Zarhym announced on the official forums that the recently opened Blizzard pet store are now regional. This means that pets purchased from, say, the European store can only be redeemed on European World of Warcraft accounts. He doesn't go into detail other than to say that pets that have already been purchased from one region and redeemed in another region are not affected by this change. While it's a curious move on the surface, it effectively restricts players from Europe purchasing their Pandaren Monk and Lil' K.T. from the US store where the pets are cheaper at $10 compared to €10 or £10 in the EU (roughly $15). Interestingly enough, the pets are priced at ₩12,000 in the Korean version of the store, which is about the same price as in the US ($10.3). It's unclear why the European version of the pets -- along with a few other Blizzard store items -- are more expensive, a fact that makes Turpster huff and puff and blow Azerothian houses down. Obvious business reasons aside, it also creates a minor inconvenience for people who would like to give the pets as gifts to players in other regions. However, considering that many vanity pet codes have been regional in the past, such as those given away during Blizzard special events, it's not a surprising move. Then again, this whole foray into microtransactions was a bit of a surprise, so we've learned to never underestimate those folks from Irvine.
Breakfast Topic: How far would you let WoW microtransactions go?
One of the hottest topics in the past week was Blizzard's foray into the microtransactions game. By announcing the Blizzard pet store, World of Warcraft had officially come on par with other MMOs and online games that sold in-game items for real world money. Our informal survey showed that views on the move were officially split... a good third of our readers would buy the pet, another third didn't plan to, while another full third thought that our world was coming to an end. Well, the World of Warcraft, at least. At any rate, it looks like the Pet Store is here to stay. Besides, Blizzard has already been hawking in-game services for real money, so it's not as if these vanity pets are any different. I personally don't find anything wrong with these pets, and seeing the number of diminutive liches and kung fu pandas showing up all over Azeroth, it really seems like a lot of other people don't, either. Blizzard states that these items, similar to the TCG loot cards, are "purely cosmetic and just for fun." They say that they'd be loathe to introduce things that are "detrimental to the game and (detracts) from the gameplay experience for players who choose not to use the service." So that probably means no epic weapons or anything of the sort. How far does that go, though? Are heirloom items considered detrimental to the game? How about buying levels? Premades? I personally wouldn't mind paying a fair price to skip the painful leveling process (an attitude that might admittedly change during the Cataclysm). What's do you think is next for Blizzard? Armor dyes, perhaps? Vanity outfits such as the complete Brewfest set or gag items such as those found on the TCG? Titles? Now that the microtransactions gate has been opened, how far do you think Blizzard will go?
Breakfast Topic: Will you buy the new in-game pets?
In-case you missed it, which really is only possible if you were living under a rock or had something else going on, yesterday's news was some of the largest out of WoW this year. Blizzard is now allowing you to purchase in-game pets for real life money through the Blizzard store. There are two pets, pictured about, available for sale now. The Pandaren Monk and Lil K'T'. Both pets cost $10, and the Pandaren Monk will see 50% of its sale price go towards the Make-a-Wish foundation (for the remainder of the year). This firmly brings WoW into the arena of microtransactions -- purchasing in-game items for real life money. Some games, not WoW, allow you purchase items which make you stronger in the game. Other games, like WoW, allow the purchase of vanity items, such as these pets, which do nothing other than look cool or count towards vanity achievements. Some people really don't like this model of gaming, others are indifferent, and others are in love with it. I'm personally in love with it. I think the items are cheap enough to be affordable to a large portion of the player base, and are cool enough to warrant the purchase. Further, since the items don't provide in-game power ups for people, they are essentially meaningless toys. This makes it an ideal luxury item for the virtual-nerd to spend $10 on. So will I buy the new in-game pets? Absolutely, I already have. But what will you do? Are you going to go out and buy them? Vote in the poll and leave a comment, we want to know. %Poll-36542%
Patch 3.2.2 PTR: Pandaren and Lil' K.T. pets revealed in latest build
Like Diablo's Cow Level, the Pandaren have almost mythic status within World of Warcraft since that memorable and almost plausible April Fool's Day prank. Blizzard has paid homage to that by tucking a pet Pandaren Monk into the latest build (10371) of patch 3.2.2 which has just gone live on the PTR.Boubouille over at MMO Champion has once again been rooting around the patch files and he came across the first model of the aforementioned pet. Isn't he cute? Heavy on the Chinese aethetics, we have no idea how you'll be able to get this little guy. While datamining, Boubouille also discovered another hitherto unmentioned pet, Lil' K.T.. Yes, you too can have your own pocket-sized Kel'Thuzad, a tiny trophy-sized lich to call your very own! Again, we're not sure how you get one. Here's hoping he drops off his full-sized self in Naxx but who knows? For now we just have a spell note in the files And as a note, please remember that Pandarens are not a playable race, nor is this an indication they will ever be added to WoW. 2n - 1 go left, 2n go right. I don't see enough DoTs! More DoTs now! Are you ready for the return of Onyxia? With the Brood Mother being revitalized as a 10 and 25 person raid, you'll need to be sure you know everything that's coming at you. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.2 will make sure your set for the next patch!
