nethaera
Latest
US transfers now available
I like to think this is in response to Jose here: Nethaera has announced some free realm transfers for North American players, to complement the European ones. In addition, the list of eligible realms for migration to Fizzcrank, the new transfer realm, has been expanded. The transfers to Fizzcrank are currently active, and are scheduled to run until Monday, 11/24, 12:00 PM PST. Realms newly eligible are in italics. Source: Aggramar, Alleria, Alextrasza, Argent Dawn, Arygos, Blackhand, Doomhammer, Greymane, Hellscream, Hyjal, Medivh, Thrall, Silvermoon, Whisperwind, Zul'jin Destination: Fizzcrank These moves, on PvP servers, are just your run-of-the-mill free server transfers. They are currently active, and are scheduled to run until Thursday, 11/20, 4:00 PM PST. Source A: Arthas, Magtheridon, Mal'Ganis, Kel'Thuzad Destination A: Dentarg Source B: Burning Blade, Cho'gall, Illidan, Mannoroth, Skullcrusher Destination B: Haomarush So who's switching homes? Those are some extremely popular realms in the source sections there; denizens of Dentarg and Haomarush, are you up for the influx?
Blizzard says to log out and then back in to ensure an upgrade
I have to admit, this is an odd news bulletin. But Nethaera posted this on the general forums tonight without any promoting from the users."To ensure a smooth transition to Wrath of the Lich King, we recommend that players who have newly upgraded their accounts, log into the game and log out completely for a short period of time in order for their account to fully update."So what does that mean? Does it mean I have to be logged out for the game to update? I would think that would be a "duh" kind of thing. But what I'm taking from it is the following steps: Upgrade Account to Wrath Log in /dance Log out ??? Log in and go to Northend My guess is that some internal variables in the game need to be reset upon logging in, and those variables might affect other login processes, so you have to "restart" more or less. Either way, it's good information that should go out to the masses.
All Blizzard forums are again locked
Nethaera just laid the hammer down folks. All of the Blizzard forums have been locked. This means you will not be able to post on them at all. It looks like they will remain locked for the remainder of the day. Quite ungood for those of us that like to use them productively.They've done this so the community manager can communicate with the community better. They need to get information out quickly, and cannot have the forum system overloaded and explode as it did last night.This is not the first time we've seen them lock the forums in the past twenty four hours, although I do hope it is the last time.On a brighter side of things, our comments are not locked! And we don't really subscribe to the 1984 doctrine. Newspeak here I come!
Is it Thursday yet?
Here at WoW Insider we pay pretty close attention to what the blues say. They often come out with the latest information on what's happening behind the scenes at Blizzard. Blues, overall, have a lot of power over the game and the forums. Some can outright ban you, refund your items, or do whatever else their GM/Community Manager powers let them. Yesterday however Zarhym revealed a new power.The power of time control."Is it Thursday yet?" some forum poster asks."Yes!" replies Zarhym.Taking back what he said he soon replies, "Update: I'm being told this is not correct. Sorry :(" The deflated moans of millions of nerds around the word can be heard. For a fleeting moment it appeared that Zarhym used his power of time control for good.Nethaera eventually jumps in to put a freeze on overly ambitious Zarhym. Apologizing outright for the confusion, she insists that Thursday will be coming soon. But then something amazing happens. Something so brilliant, so revolutionary, so game changing that it will shake the world! The blues figure out the secret to time travel!
Hints of another world event soon
This morning Nethaera, a community manager with Blizzard, posted the following on the general forums: "Perhaps something will be occurring before [the release of Wrath]. I guess it's something we'll have to wait and see."This comes in a response to a question asking if there will be a couple more surprises before Wrath of the Lich King. Of course Neth is being her usual vague self here, not really committing to anything one way or another. But the comment does raise an eyebrow, and the fact that she even decided to respond to the question without a definitive "no" is good enough to speculate that there might be another world event headed our way.
Forum post of the day: They know their lore
The Warcraft storyline has come a long way since Orcs and Humans. Bobbyjeh of Aman'Thul asked how Blizzard maintains their "seemingly endless lore and story arc. Nethaera responded that the company has a Historian on staff as well as an expanding department dedicated to lore. They cover all three of the major Blizzard universes. They help to keep continuity in the game and keeps things interesting for our resident Lore Nerd. While I was doing the quest chain for my Swift Flight Form, I wondered to myself. What does someone who's been asleep for so long know about Outland? I've often wondered how it is that new Draenei characters all crashed "one month ago." As some pointed out, there has been some discontinuity in the Warcraft Universe. But Blizzard does a pretty good job of keeping their story straight. No stranger than C3PO saying, "Thank the maker," when technically, Darth Vader is the maker. We accept these plot holes and move on.
Official class forums to be replaced with role forums [UPDATED x2]
Want to hear something frightening? There will be no more class forums. Nethaera announced it a bit earlier on the official forums, and I'm still not sure what to think. They're breaking down the class forums and replacing them with role forums: Tanking, Healing, and Damage Dealing. For those players that have been afraid they're homogenizing classes a little too much, this really isn't helping.Personally, I think this is a horrible move. The official class forums were bad enough, and now they've thrust all of the classes together. Have you seen those really cruel, gross videos where they put two scary looking bugs together in a glass cage and let them kill each other, and they'll do it every single time just because it's in their nature to defend themselves? This is the WoW forum equivalent of it. This is going to be a disaster. The walls are going to be painted with blood.
Could there be such a thing as life without the Lich King?
In response to one player's question, "After Arthas, what's left to kill?" Bornakk has revealed a surprising tidbit about the future of World of Warcraft. The answer is: Murlocs! That's right. After we kill Arthas, "instead of adding new creatures or new continents it will be just one area of endlessly spawning murlocs." Amazing fun! This is what I've been wishing for ever since I saw my first murlocs on the shores of Darkshore. Perhaps we'll be able to collect endless varieties of Murky pets, too! They could go by all sorts of cute names like Lurky, Quirky and Turky.Ah... to dream. Anyways, later in the same thread, Nethaera stops by too and adds her own meditation on the possible death of Arthas, reminding us of a most ancient question regarding trees falling in the woods without anyone to hear them: "If Arthas dies, does the Lich King also die?" This seems to be a pretty clear indication that the death of Arthas will not mean the death of the Lich King, and that the story of the Living versus the Dead will go even after the big bad prince bites the dust.Arthas and the Lich King has been a pretty huge part of the Warcraft story ever since before most of us were even familiar with it, and for some of us it feels strange that he might one day no longer be a part of it. In our interview with WoW's lead producer, he noted that both the Maelstrom and the Emerald Dream were once considered as possibilities for WoW's second expansion, but they chose Northrend and Arthas to come before them because it seemed like the strongest idea. But how strong is Arthas really? Could he ever compare to murlocs?No, but seriously, do you think the Lich King is just way too cool not to perpetuate indefinitely as the ultimate villain? Would you like to see Arthas get killed in one patch, while the Lich King returned in another, kind of like Kael'thas showed up twice in The Burning Crusade? Or do you think we're going to get our fill of Lich Kinginess -- so much so that once Arthas is dead, the Lich King and all the Scourge should just die for good along with him?
Who's who at BlizzCon: WoW Insider's guide to the staff of Blizzard
Everyone going to BlizzCon this year will get to roam around the convention hall with some of the very people who bring you World of Warcraft and other Blizzard games. While many World of Warcraft fans might be familiar with the online pseudonyms such as "Drysc" and "Tigole," very few probably know what they actually look like.We've searched the internet high and low for pictures of these folks and have compiled them into a nice and handy gallery complete with some biographical information. The pictures are small and mobile enough that they can be saved to an iPhone or other mobile device that can be brought into the convention hall.If you happen to be going to BlizzCon be sure to stop and say hello to these Blizzard people. And if you aren't going, check out WoW Insider during the convention for the latest and greatest reporting right from the floor.%Gallery-33827%
Nethaera talks about supporting roleplayers
There's a huge forum thread over on the forums right now (though it's been going for the better part of a month) about Blizzard putting in more for roleplayers -- player housing, surnames, and "a more interactive world" are all asked for, and much later in the thread, Nethaera does weigh in with a nice long statement about how Blizzard is dealing with all of this stuff. The bottom line, as always, is that there's only so many hours in the day, and Blizzard has to prioritize what gets worked on. And as of yet, neither player housing nor surnames or any of the other suggestions have made their way to the top of the list.Which makes sense -- as many roleplayers as there are, nobody would really call them the primary audience of the game. There are definitely other games out there that are much better for defining a character. Which doesn't mean that we'll never see these things ingame -- player housing has been wanted (and promised) for a long time, and surnames are something that's common in almost every MMO but World of Warcraft. Neth just says that it's a matter of time, and that while player housing is still on the horizon, the world of Northrend will be more immersive and interactive than the rest of the game so far. Which is good news not just for roleplayers but for everyone else as well.
Patch 3.0.2 release date revealed
If you remember from yesterday, various developers and CMs posted across the official WoW forums that Season 4 will be mostly ending on the day patch 3.0.2 is released. Today, Nethaera posted some additional information: Season 4 will end on October 14th. It was not explicitly stated by Nethaera that patch 3.0.2 will be that day, but two plus two equals four, you know?This is pretty much exactly in line with the date most of us have been guessing here at WoW Insider, but let's be honest. It wasn't hard to figure out, and I'm sure all of you guys were thinking much the same thing. It'll be almost exactly one month between patch 3.0.2 and the release of Wrath of the Lich King on November 13th. It will also be after BlizzCon and not before it, so if anything goes wrong their lead devs can jump right back into work instead of needing to worry about the convention.So start marking your calendars, ladies and gents. October 9th, WoW Insider meet at the Lost Bar. October 10th and 11th, BlizzCon. October 14th, Patch 3.0.2. November 13th, Wrath of the Lich King.[ Thanks, Shawn! ]
Blizzcast #5 takes care of post-Worldwide Invitational 2008 business
The latest Blizzcast is live! This fifth outing is the post-Worldwide Invitational episode. The bulk of its running time is dedicated to Diablo 3. If you're interested in that pseudo-MMO, action-RPG goodness, then there is a ton of information in there. Diablo 3 Community Manager Bashiok interviews Lead Designer Jay Wilson about the game. It's detailed stuff (e.g., several minutes dedicated to Blizzard's reasons for abandoning the grid-like inventory management of the earlier Diablo games), so Blizzard fans should check it out.Of course, here at Massively we have a special interest in World of Warcraft. We're sad to report that Blizzcast #5 is a little light on WoW or Wrath of the Lich King discussion. Community Manager Nethaera participates in the first half of the podcast, and she talks a little bit about WotLK, but she mostly shares in the post-Diablo 3 announcement glee. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
New Blizzcast: Professions, progression and patches, oh my
Blizzcast episode 4 is out, and it's chock full of the interesting discussion you've come to enjoy from the Blizzard crew. This episode includes some fantastic interviews on a variety of wide-ranging topics from the music of World of Warcraft's Sunwell Plateau to designing the various in-game professions, and caps off with a bunch of reader-submitted dev-answered questions -- and some tasty Starcraft II information! If you're curious about the things going on behind the scenes at Blizzard (you know, beyond frantically trying to fix the online store so people can pick up Blizzcon tickets) then be sure to check out Blizzcast #4! Or for those of you who aren't into podcasts (or who just don't have the ability to listen in right now) be sure to check out their handy transcription of the podcast, available now for your lunch-hour reading pleasure. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
Blizzcast Episode 4 reveals Warcraft information and insights
Blizzcast episode 4 is now live and available for listening, and with it, of course, has come a wealth of new World of Warcraft Information. Some of it is stuff we've gotten wind for before, but there's some interesting insights into the whole game. You can listen to it here and read the transcript here, or join us after the break for a breakdown of the juiciest information from the Interviews
Beta patch notes for August 1st
The beta client was patched against last night, and the process was nice and smooth. The realms were actually up earlier than their estimate, which was a shocking difference from what we see on Live realms. Of course, Live realms see maintenance at the same time, so maybe that was the difference. The patch wasn't a big one by any means, it was actually quite small compared to the last one.This patch is mostly Mage and Shaman changes, but it also contained the beginnings of Blizzard's built-in threat meter. I can't say its the greatest implementation ever, but it's a start and the information it provides is already proving itself infinitely useful to mod authors such as the fellow behind Omen. More on that another time though, you're here for the patch notes and the patch notes I shall provide. Check behind the cut for the recent changes according to the candlestick.
Neth hints at getting ready for Wrath
Mookou asks for a "51-point talent preview" before the expansion, and while we probably won't actually get that, what we'll get is likely the same we got with the Burning Crusade release -- about a month before the expansion, there'll be a huge downloadable content patch for everyone (we've heard before that it will be patch 3.0) that will contain all of the updates everyone is getting: all of the talent updates, game mechanic changes, model updates, and so on that we're going to see in the expansion. Blizzard will make all the changes and fixes around that patch, and then when Wrath is actually released, you'll just be installing Northrend content, and the game itself will be (supposedly) ready for all of it to work together. And Neth confirms that this is probably the plan -- it should work much like last time around, though the patch will probably be closer to release day.Now, Blizzard is much better at this than they used to be, so we'd imagine that (hopefully) things will go a little smoother this time around, and we won't have nearly as many problems or hotfixes as we saw last expansion. But then again, we do know they are planning things a little differently this time around -- they've divided the entry and exit zones up, so we won't see a big mess like we saw in Burning Steppes or Hellfire Peninsula. And there are rumors that we'll see a World Event go down before we actually go to Northrend, and as of right now, we don't know if there is going to be a testing phase for that or how long it might take. Last time around, too, you'll note, everyone got a free respec (and some even got two), and we haven't heard anything about that this time yet.Of course, as always with Blizzard, time will tell. Given that we're expecting a November release, that would put a big 3.0 patch in October, and we already know Brewfest is going to have some changes then, so 3.0 could come in conjunction with those changes or around them. We'll have to wait and see.
Neth teases about tattoos in Wrath
Nethaera has been pretty visible on the forums lately, answering a lot of questions about Wrath of the Lich King. She even popped into one discussion asking about the possibility of being able to change faces in the expansion if only to say that plastic surgery isn't in the cards quite yet. However, Neth mentions that players will be able to change hairstyles, facial hair, and possibly even get tattoos. So while some of us who've chosen wrinkled, old mugs might not get a rejuvenating facelift (and Undead who don't have jaws will continue to miss them), a lot of customization will be available in the form of new horns for tauren, jewelry, and maybe tattoos. Salthem states the same thing in another thread, saying that there's a lot of development to be done, but that this was the direction they were taking.The April Fool's prank that Blizzard pulled this year featured the Guitar Hero-inspired Bard class, and pictures of the character had intricate tattoos on both arms. Some early speculation posited that it could be from the new profession Inscription. It could be that the tattoos were just an artist's embellishment for the prank, but it's equally probable that the barber shops in Northrend just might be tattoo parlors, as well.
WotLK Alpha NDA lifted
Nethaera posted in the beta forums that the NDA for the Wrath of the Lich King Alpha has been lifted. In response to a question asking if people could share things from the Alpha, Neth says "Feel free to discuss at will." This is great news for everyone that wants to talk about the alpha material legally. Those who've been part of the Alpha will get to post troves of information and stories that they've collected. I'm sure some of them will be going up on WoW Insider soon enough, and these will only expand as beta invites become more active.The Alpha NDA was a source of tension for a lot of people, especially those in the Alpha. Several set up or contributed to sites like DeathKnight.info and WotlkWiki.com. It was very difficult, if not impossible, for Blizzard to enforce the NDA. However they were successful in forcing WotLKWiki.com to relocate.It will be interesting to see what the repercussions of the lifted NDA end up to be. One thing is for sure though, and that's that we're starting to see new and exciting information about WotLK come out minute by minute. Stay tuned!
Neth lays down answers on Wrath release, leaks
Nethaera was in an answering mood this weekend -- she opened up a few cans on all kinds of player questions, and clarified a few answers we weren't so thrilled with before. The biggest question, of course, was the release date for Wrath, and rather than just giving the usual "soon" answer, Neth actually made sure to say that Blizzard has definitely not finished the game yet.She also gave a much better answer about why Blizzard is opposed to the leaking of talent data from the game. Before, all we heard was that leaking the data was "extremely offensive and inappropriate" (that comment's been deleted from the forums, actually). And this time around, Neth is much more reasonable -- the reason they don't want data leaked is because they want players to theorycraft from gameplay, not from talent data. Of course, that still doesn't mean hearing about the data earlier is a bad thing, for the players or devs, but she has a point -- reading talent data isn't the same as playing the class.Other than that, the questions aren't too great. People ask if Blizzard is going to do anything original, and of course they are -- Blizzard's great ideas don't come out any sooner than "when they're ready," but when they do, they're almost always groundbreaking and fun. It's completely understandable that Wrath is taking their focus, and while yes, the waiting is always the hardest part, Blizzard has never shown us that the wait for their games is anything less than worth it.
BlizzCon tickets still not on sale
With the Worldwide Invitational fast fading into memory, everyone's thoughts are starting to turn in earnest to the upcoming BlizzCon 2008, happening October 10th and 11th in Anaheim. One of the number one questions: Where can I get tickets? So far, Netheara can only tell us that they'll let us know, but there's no ETA as of yet. Still, if we're looking at last year's BlizzCon, Blizzard actually has another month before they need to put tickets out to keep pace. In 2007, BlizzCon was held during the first week of August, and tickets went on sale June 12th. That means there was a little under 2 months between the time the first tickets went on sale and the time the event happened. If they follow the same basic timeline this year, we can expect tickets sometime in mid-August. Then again, tickets for the Worldwide Invitational Paris went on sale on March 20th, around 3 months before the Invitational itself. In that case, Blizzard would need to start selling tickets within the next few days to keep pace. In that case, perhaps it's a bit futile to try to predict the exact date that we can expect BlizzCon ticket sales. Either way, keep your browser tuned here, we'll be sure to let you know the minute tickets are available.
