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Method wins their second BlizzCon live raid
Congratulations to Method for winning their second BlizzCon live raid! This year, both Method and Midwinter raced in Highmaul (Heroic), one of the upcoming Warlords of Draenor raids. Unlike the Siege of Orgrimmar race from last year, this race was from start to finish -- including the trash, which proved to be one of the deciding factors for Method's victory. Midwinter started out strong by killing the first boss, Kargath, while Method still had about 20% to go. This advantage quickly shifted when Midwinter had some hiccups on the trash on the way to Twin Ogron (the 3 bosses in between are optional bosses, which they skipped for the purpose of the race). Method killed Twin Ogron with Midwinter still at 25%. Midwinter slowly caught up during Ko'ragh and ended up pulling the final boss, Imperator Mar'gok, only 10 seconds behind Method. The final fight was pretty exciting, with Method and Midwinter only about 5-10% apart on boss health throughout the whole fight. There were several close calls, but Method ended up pulling it off. If you have the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, I'd recommend checking out the VOD. Lead Designer Ion Hazzikostas gives some good background information on the fight mechanics and some of the lore behind the raid.
BlizzCon 2013: Method vs. Midwinter live raid recap
Ion Hazzikostas, Lead Encounter Designer, and community manager Josh "Lore" Allen hosted this year's live raid where Midwinter (US Alliance) and Method (EU Horde) competed in the Siege of Orgrimmar on 25-player heroic mode. All of the raid trash was removed, and the bosses they had to fight were Sha of Pride, Kor'kron Dark Shaman, Malkorok, Siegecrafter Blackfuse, and Garrosh Hellscream. The race started out with Midwinter killing Sha of Pride a few seconds before Method, but things took a turn for the worse on the Kor'kron Dark Shaman where Midwinter experienced 4 wipes (one of them at only 3%). Eventually, Midwinter breezed through Malkorok and Siegecrafter Blackfuse with little difficulty, but their wipes gave Method the opportunity to kill the next two bosses and get several attempts in on Garrosh before killing him on attempt 3 to win the race. Congratulations to Method for the win!
Method square off against Midwinter in the BlizzCon live raid
BlizzCon is just a shade over one week away, and the time to start getting excited is now! In the past, one of the most fun player events at the convention has been the live raid, and this year will likely be no exceptions. Blizzard has brought in world #1 ranked Horde guild Method to face off against world #1 ranked Alliance guild Midwinter (what is it with M names anyway?) in a race against some of the Siege of Orgrimmar's most challenging bosses. The live raid will feature the heroic 25-man verions of Sha of Pride, the Kor'kron Dark Shaman, Malkorok, Siegecrafter Blackfuse, and Garrosh Hellscream. It will begin at 10 am Pacific time on Saturday, and commentary will be provided by lead encounter designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas and community manager Josh "Lore" Allen so us audience members can better follow the action. Make sure to tune in for the live raid, and let us know if you're for the Alliance (Midwinter) or the Horde (Method)!
Battle.net World Championships feature challenge modes, raids, and more
The Battle.net World Championship will be kicking off Friday, November 16. If you're interested in World of Warcraft there's going to be quite a bit going on for you. One of the highlight events will be a Challenge Mode Dungeon tournament, similar to the match between Blood Legion and the Blizzard UX team during the Mists of Pandaria launch event. Arena PvP will be represented as well with the Arena Global finals, and top guilds Stars and Supreme Quicksand will be engaging in a live raid of Heroic Mogu'shan Vaults. Keep your eyes peeled for more announcements and get ready to watch some of the best World of Warcraft players in the world. 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.
StarCraft vs. Warcraft: What is the WoW community missing?
For the past year or so, I've been living a double life. To some, I am a skilled and tenacious night elf priestess, adventuring through Azeroth at the charge of the Holy Light, healing the injured and saving the incompetent. To others, however, I am but a lowly brood mother, commanding a swarming, parasitic army with occasional success against my enemies across the Koprulu sector. Don't follow me? Basically, I've just been playing a lot of StarCraft 2 whenever I'm not raiding. Still, being heavily invested in WoW and StarCraft has really felt like living two lives at times, especially when you consider how dramatically different they both are. And I'm not talking about the gameplay; obviously one would expect an MMORPG and an RTS to be incomparable. What I mean is that that the culture and community that surrounds these two games are distinctively different, despite the fact that the games share some of their playerbase with one another. You'd think that one game community would be pretty similar to the next, but they're not. The whole thing has left me with a lot of questions to turn over in my mind. Is it possible that the WoW and StarCraft communities could learn from the other? Seven years in, is it even possible for the WoW community to change in any significant way at this point? And if so, is there something missing in the WoW community? To explore the idea further, I started making a list of all the things I thought the StarCraft community had that the WoW community was lacking.
BlizzCon 2010: Defense of Orgrimmar live raid
I finished watching the current No. 1 guild in the world <Paragon> tackle a unique live raid event developed just for BlizzCon 2010! It was a big thrill watching them do their stuff. I only wish I could've heard their communications in real time. I've always wondered what is being discussed on unknown encounters. Except these weren't unknown encounters. We were fighting past foes like Shazzrah, Baron Geddon and the Beast. It wasn't limited to older encounters. Some newer bosses included Ozumat and Rom'ogg Bonecrusher. Apologies for the image quality on some of these folks; I'll need to select a better location and grab a better camera.
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: The short version
For all those of you out there who don't have the time to slog through the 100+ articles we published on BlizzCon 2009, we've condensed the events of the past few days into the most important things you need to know: THE END OF WRATH: Developers gave some pretty revealing information on what we can expect to see in patch 3.2.2 (the revamped Onyxia raid) and in patch 3.3, where we'll finally stare down Arthas himself. THE NEXT EXPANSION: Blizzard's own loremaster Chris Metzen debuted the first trailer for the next expansion, titled World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and that sound you hear is millions of players who can't believe Blizzard would ever pull a stunt this big. Cataclysm's basic storyline features the return of Deathwing and the re-sundering of the world in his wake, forever altering Azeroth's classic landscape and sending players to previously unseen parts of the world like the Lost Isles, Hyjal, Gilneas, Uldum, and Grim Batol. FEATURES OF CATACLYSM: The most important features of the next expansion include two new races (Goblins for the Horde and Worgen for the Alliance), new class possibilities for existing races, a new secondary skill, character stat simplification, cross-server instances, the ability to level and "talent" your guild, new means of character advancement through the Path of the Titans, Mastery, and the revamping of the talent system, and rated battlegrounds. LIVEBLOGS: We blogged and liveblogged the convention from start to finish: the Opening Ceremony, the WoW Preview panel, the WoW Art panel, The Guild's panel, the first and second WoW Class, Items, and Professions Panels, the general WoW Q&A, the Breaking Into the Industry panel, the Game Systems panel, and the Raids and Dungeons panel. FUN AND GAMES: Even in the middle of all the craziness, we still found time for our third annual Reader Meetup (we expected maybe 300 people and got 1200+) with the cast of The Guild present, Premonition's live raid, the Costume contest, and the Dance and Soundalike contests. If you'd like a more thorough look at how BlizzCon 2009 went, visit our round-ups on Day One and Day Two of the con for a more complete guide to our articles, galleries, and videos.
Day two of BlizzCon 2009: Round-up
Well, readers, BlizzCon 2009 is over and done, and our staff is slowly but surely beginning to make its way home in celebrated zombie-like fashion. In the meantime, we've outsourced article production to our household pets, so be gentle with your criticism of Toonces' efforts today (stupid cat can't even spell QQ correctly). Anyway, here's what happened on Day 2 of BlizzCon: SATURDAY'S PANELS: We liveblogged the panels on Breaking Into the Industry, the general World of Warcraft Q&A, WoW Game Systems, the Dungeons and Raids panel (which included information on both Icecrown Citadel and Cataclysm content) and the second WoW Class Discussion panel. NEW FEATURES ANNOUNCED: Blizzard announced a long-awaited feature in the form of cross-server instances, which should dramatically increase the pool of people available to run a 5-man at any given time. We won't have to wait for the expansion; they believe it should be ready to go live in patch 3.3. Another long-awaited feature will make its debut in the form of rated battlegrounds and arena points from wins. A beloved feature of the old honor system -- ranked (and faction-specific) PvP titles! -- will also return. WORLD OF WARCRAFT: WE'RE ALL &$#*%*^ED NOW: Cataclysm continued its storm through the con, and we've got in-depth looks at an array of the announced features. Read on for a look at the Cataclysm narrative, tanks and the removal of +defense, an explanation of the Mastery system and new talent functionality, what we know about the Path of the Titans, the introduction of guild leveling and talents, the known dungeons of Cataclysm, and what we can expect to see in patch 3.3's Icecrown Citadel raid and 5-mans. PATCH 3.2.2: On the subject of Wrath game patches, Matt Rossi takes a look at the most eagerly-anticipated part of patch 3.2.2, the return of Onyxia. LIVE RAID: The top-ranked U.S. guild, Premonition, did a live raid against a series of selected bosses, falling eventually to...Hogger? No one saw that coming. CLASS AND ROLE COMMENTARY: Zach Yonzon and Eddie Carrington respectively have you covered on Warlock and Hunter information from at the Class Q&A panels, Christian Belt's written his column on Cataclysm and Mages, and Matticus examines the information released on stat changes and their likely repercussions for healers. VIDEOS: We have additional video of the new Worgen and Goblin starting areas, the finalists and winner of the costume contest, and the Dance and Soundalike contest. %Gallery-70748%%Gallery-70706%%Gallery-70745%%Gallery-70746%%Gallery-70747%
BlizzCon 2009: Premonition live raid
You've probably heard of Premonition, one of the big raiding guilds that everyone follows in "the raiding scene." Among other things, Premonition is the group known for being the first guild in the U.S. to complete Alone in the Darkness. They were also special guest stars this year at BlizzCon 2009. Similar to other WoW related panels, the stage hall in which Premonition performed was way too small for the sheer number of people who showed up. We stood shoulder to shoulder and necks to backs in order to fit. Unlike other live raid displays, Premonition's live raid performance was crafted specifically for this convention. Premonition fought a series of four boss teams, with each boss team having at least three members. Some of the bosses featured during the raid included the a team of dragons, Brutallus, Infernus, and other stars from Outland. Premonition's only real wipe happened when they faced down Thaddius, Anub'Rekhan, and Patchwerk. That three-boss team managed to get Premonition down on their first attempt. After only a bit of recovery, the star raiding guild picked themselves up and easily defeated the trio. The final bout, however, was with a very special guest star from the old world past. Updated and beefed to represent his full power as a level 80 raid boss, this nightmare memory was met by the audience with howls of joy and nostalgia. Hogger had appeared. Despite their skill and coordination, Premonition stood no match against the Gnoll of Gnolls. While noone can dispute Premonition's skill, there are just some basic truths to the world. Hogger is the king boss. 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!
Nihilum live at WWI
If the Arena can be a spectator sport, raiding can too. Nihilum, a guild that simply needs no introduction, has broadcast a live feed of their elite Sunwell Plateau raiding skills will also be appearing at WWI this weekend. An update on the convention's page notes that you will be able to meet and watch some of the guild's superstars: Kungen (Thomas Bengtsson), guild leader of Nihilum, playing his Tauren Warrior Hath (Luke Brown), playing his Undead Mage Sniffy (Bryndis Sturludottir), playing her Blood Elf Paladin These members will be joined by Gustav Käll, aka Marilyn, who will be giving commentary of the raid. The WoW Europ page promises that viewers will be able to see Nihilum in action live on both days of the World Wide Invitational. Participants will also see the guild's top-notch arena team, consisting of Beasteh, Cherez and Hydra. It looks like the entertainment at the event will be spectacular. In addition to Nihilum's appearance attendess will also be treated to live concerts by Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain and Video Games live.
New live raid broadcast by Nihilum
We've told you before about Nihilum's new planned broadcast of a Sunwell Plateau raid, hosted by XFire. We just wanted to remind you that the big day's right around the corner -- the broadcast starts live on Wednesday, June 25th at 19 CEST. This time around, there's 4,000 view slots available, and you'll be able to watch the raid over the shoulder of a Warrior, Hunter, Druid, or Warlock. The broadcast is set to run about 3 to 4 hours. As Natalie warned you before, make sure you have the Dyyno plug-in installed and ready to go ahead of time. (Dyyno runs "best" under XP on Internet Explorer, but should work fine with Firefox.) Check out the event's web site for more instructions. Nihilum doesn't promise a Kil'Jaeden take-down -- but why risk missing it?
