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Blizzard fights scammers with TCG mount changes
Blizzard has confirmed what we have speculated about: the change to make Upper Deck Trading Card Game mounts Bind-on-Use instead of BoP is specifically to combat scammers.Currently, if you have a loot code, you redeem it and then "purchase" the mount from an NPC vendor. The mount immediately becomes soulbound. This two step process allows unscrupulous people to easily scam prospective mount buyers and subsequently hack their accounts. In patch 3.2, redeeming the code will automatically place the mount in your inventory, unsoulbound and available for legitimate in-game transactions.Bornakk warns that if you have already redeemed a mount code, but have not purchased your mounts from the NPC, you will not be able to do so after 3.2. So it is important that you get your mounts before the patch is released, which could be as early as this Tuesday.Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Interview: Magic the Gathering -- Duels of the Planeswalkers
Duels of the Planeswalkers was released at the beginning of summer on Xbox Live Arcade, and it's a surprisingly competent take on the traditional Magic card game. The XBLA game is immediately familiar and also easy enough for first-timers to jump in and learn the ropes. There's a robust tutorial, all of the cards are real Magic cards, and the multiplayer features multiple modes of play, including four-on-four battles and "Two-Headed Giant," where a team of two faces off against another team of two. In short, it's addictive.We recently spoke with Worth Wollpert, senior business manager for Magic Online, and Mark Purvis, associate brand manager, both at Wizards of the Coast. The subject at hand was all things Duels of the Planeswalkers: there's some DLC on the way, and possibly other changes to the game -- but no deck customization (boo!). For now, the team is happy to let the game bring lapsed players back into the fold, and to introduce new players to the tapping and shuffling of Magic: The Gathering. Continue reading for the full interview.%Gallery-30916%
DC Unlimited Premium Series 2 features Thrall and a Gnome Warlock
I would hazard a guess that the DC Unlimited series of action figures from the WoW universe is probably the least-heralded licensed product -- whenever Upper Deck releases a new set of the TCG, we get multiple press releases and it gets posted on their main site, but whenever a new set of figures comes out, we always have to find it hidden in among all the other comic news and then make sure it hasn't been released before. But these are new, or at least new to us: DC is planning to release two new Premium Series 2 action figures, including everyone's favorite tortured Horde leader, Thrall, and a Gnome Warlock with a Voidwalker pal.Technically, news of these guys leaked out to distributors in May, but apparently we didn't miss the boat by too much anyway, as they're not set to be on store shelves until next January (or February, even, depending on where you look). Does it really take that long to get these things ready and out? At any rate, there they are, and we wouldn't be surprised to see both figures on display at BlizzCon later this year. We've had a few of you in the comments mention that you'd like to see a Thrall figure before, and so here you go. Personally, I have a completely different Orc I'd like to see immortalized in action figure form.%Gallery-45214%Thanks, KND and Eric W.!
BattleForge shuffling 60 new cards into August expansion
Our knowledge of the inner workings of Electronic Arts' microtransaction-infused RTS BattleForge is limited, but we're still pretty excited about the Renegade Edition expansion that's coming to the game this August. The add-on will add 60 new cards to the game, each representing new units and buildings. While we may not know exactly how those cards are used, our history with the Pokémon TCG taught us one hard and fast rule -- more cards is always a good thing.However, we can't begin to guess the purpose of the "dual orb cards and special affinities" that the expansion will also bring to the game, but the announcement post on BattleForge's blog says they'll "deepen and enrich the strategical possibilities of the decks and the combat itself." We guess we'll take their word for it.[Via Big Download]
TurpsterVision: TCG Loot and Huge Roosters
We can't believe it either – Turpster has been let loose on WoW.com to bring you videos from in and around the World of Warcraft! You've heard him on the WoW Insider Show, and now see him on TurpsterVision right here on WoW.com.Here at WoW.com we give away TCG loot all the time and TurpsterVision should be no different. If you've always wanted to smash an ogre till his sweet delectable guts scatter all over the floor then today might just be your lucky day! Today you get the chance to win one of the new Fields of Honor loot codes by just leaving a comment to this week's TurpsterVision (Being a limey Brit this is open to EU only as the codes apparently only work over here...sorry)!Read on below the break for more information on how to win your very own Fields of Honor loot and for an image which is NSFW. That's right ladies, I've whacked it out due to popular demand and snapped off a few shots of my massive beast. (If that doesn't intrigue you into clicking then I don't know what will!)
Fields of Honor on sale tomorrow
Ahh the smell of fresh loot in the air, it must be summer. Well, fans of loot cards and the official Trading Card Game, I bet you have your calendar marked. Tomorrow sees the release of the latest - and possibly greatest - TCG expansion Fields of Honor. Yes, you too could have your very own El Pollo Grande, the greatest mount in the entire history of Azeroth. We've mentioned this thing was rarer than a spectral tiger's tooth, right? Indeed our very own Turpster has been raving about his (insert slightly rude giant chicken joke here) all week.The best part that is the cards were activated in an earlier patch so you can use them as soon as you find one. No more waiting for 3.1.x or even 3.2. Just to recap, the Fields of Honor loot consists of El Pollo Grande, the Ogre Pinata and the groovy Path of Cenarius. You can also take a peek at Upper Deck's loot card preview page for some really cool screenshots.But here's the best part. After the success of our last EU giveaway, Upper Deck International here in the UK have very kindly given us a set of shiny European loot cards. Isn't that nice of them? We certainly think so! We're going to give them away during this week's maintenance so check back then.
Death Knight class arrives in the TCG
Upper Deck has announced that the Death Knight class is coming to the WoW trading card game. Just like in the MMO, the class plays differently than any other -- their website has a series of previews posted that show just how different their DKs are. The class is designed to do crazy damage with two-hand weapons, and there are options to do extra damage by sacrificing allies or equip gear that provides you with solid armor even as you're churning out DPS. There are Death Knight Horde and Alliance allies as well, and each of them has a Death Knight-specific ability -- lots of Shadow damage, exchanging protection for more damage, and even some Frost-tree cold debuffs. And there are quests to go along with the Death Knight class as well, where DKs get extra bonuses for completing and playing certain quests.Starting on June 16th, you'll be able to pick up 36-card deluxe starter decks for Death Knights at a store near you, and those decks will get inserted into the game just like any other class -- they come with a Hero to play, associated spells and quests, and three "Ghoul token cards" to play as allies. While this is the first time Death Knights will be playable as Heroes, the very first Death Knight cards were actually included in the Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition -- a pair of Ally cards named Lord Anton Nightbane (Alliance) and Conqueror Kagon Blackskull (Horde). If you like the TCG but have been looking for a new twist (or a way to bring your Death Knight character into the game), this definitely seems worth a look. And speaking of the TCG, they are now on Facebook, so if you're a fan, go say hi over there as well. The MMO and TCG crowd still seem to run in different circles (though you'll definitely see the game at BlizzCon), but there are quite a few intersecting points between them.
The Queue: The roof, the roof
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I've received a load of e-mails, tweets, whispers, and whatever else since Eliah posted this past weekend's WRUP. Yes, my garage burned down. No, nobody was hurt. No, the house didn't burn down, the siding just melted a little. No, that wasn't my car, it was my neighbor's car. Yes, my office has smelled like someone barbequeing since it happened and I can't get the smell to go away. I appreciate the concern, guys. You are all awesome. I guess I should pick a relevant Song of the Day, huh? How about Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire?Jack Spicer asked..."With each expansion Blizzard seems to be bringing underused talent specs around and making them highly desirable. In TBC, it seemed to be Feral Druids, Prot Pallies, Shadow Priests and BM Hunters. In Wrath, they really brought up Survival Hunters and Retribution Pallies.But I'm curious. From a PvE perspective, which talent trees are still universally lacking and laughable?"
WoW TCG: Arena Grand Melee expansion released
The World of Warcraft Trading Card game has released its latest expansion, but it's a little bit different than what's come before. It's called Arena Grand Melee, and it actually changes the gameplay of the TCG just a little bit, including some very different mechanics than those players have seen before. For instance, there's a card called "For the Fallen" that will grant additional cards to players when they act out their melee strikes in real-life. Another card called "Steamwheedle Casino" has players playing a quick game of Blackjack with their WoW TCG cards to win an extra card. Arena Grand Melee sounds it puts a very strange twist on the current TCG game.The WoW TCG site has been highlighting some of the new cards in the game -- there's a new ability called Preparation, which allows you to use a card twice in quick succession, and there are cards that boost your hand size and beef up your allies, as well as cards that offer up some other new heroes and abilities. It sounds like an interesting addition to the game, but on the other hand, this doesn't seem like a pack for newbies -- experienced players will get the best thrill from these twists. Pick up the eighty card sets in either of the Horde or Alliance versions at your local gaming store.
The Fields of Honor TCG loot in motion
As we mentioned just the other day, the latest batch of TCG loot from Fields of Honor is on the PTR for testing. I couldn't resist going to give those things a whirl myself. After all, how else will I decide if I should blow money on these things? Plus, the PTR has premade level 80s this cycle. Premades plus free TCG loot to play around with? Yes, please!For those of you that don't have the time or inclination to hop on the PTR yourselves, we've grabbed some video of the various items in action. Up above you'll see El Pollo Grande, and below the cut you'll find the Path of Cenarius and the Ogre Pinata. I recommend clicking through to their YouTube page and watching them in High Quality.
Try out Fields of Honor loot on the PTR
Reader Kongzai sent us a tip this morning that the recently revealed loot cards for the next TCG expansion Fields of Honor are available for testing on the PTR. He hotfotted it down to Booty Bay and reports that it is indeed possible to sample the latest loot using the same codes as in previous PTR tests. All you need to do is enter the following when prompted by Landro:1111 for the Path of Cenarius2222 for the Ogre Pinata3333 for the Magic Rooster Egg (aka El Pollo Grande)Kongzai was also able to shed a little more information on the loot itself. He reports that Path of Cenarius is the common item, coming in stacks of 100 and lasts for five minutes. The Ogre Pinata is, as I predicted, BoP and thirty minute cooldown. He comes with 5000 HP and, when destroyed, leaves a stack of gumballs in his wake which grant a buff that makes you blow bubbles. Awesome. He also told us that El Pollo Grande costs 100g which is not a bad amount for such a cool mount.This news comes mere hours after Upper Deck posted a loot card preview on their official site featuring screens and the first video of the must-have chicken mount El Pollo Grande.
WoW Lifecounter tracks TCG life on the iPhone
Double Bubble has a good little writeup on a pretty useful WoW-related iPhone application. But instead of the MMO, this app centers on another game in the WoW universe: the Trading Card Game. WoW Lifecounter (iTunes link) is a utility that will (you guessed it) count your life points as you play the TCG -- it tracks both sides' heroes, and you can take away or give life points with just the touch of a button. It's pretty simple -- all you do is punch in the starting health of each character, and then the app will even track wins for each side. Usually, you can just track the points with a pen and paper, but if you don't want to bother doing math in the heat of a battle, the app can be fun to use.It's 99 cents, which might stop the cheap among you from picking it up -- we won't blame you if you'd just rather have a Junior Bacon Chee and write things down. But if you play the WoW TCG a lot and always have your iPhone with you, it's probably worth the investment.
Latest Upper Deck loot cards revealed, including El Pollo Grande
Boubouille over at MMO Champion has once again been ferreting around in the patch files and he's discovered the next set of loot from Upper Deck's next TCG expansion Fields of Honor which is due out on 30th June.There is a legend of El Pollo Grande, the scariest chicken in all of Azeroth, the black chicken of death. For years he has been the stuff of myth, summonable only by Niby the Almighty during a Felwood quest chain. Now, however, he has once again returned, this time as a mount. Yes, you heard me right, a giant chicken mount. This El Pollo Grande is not as dark or mean as his namesake, instead looking like a regular -- albeit giant -- chicken and will be an epic land mount. So if you've not yet reached level 60, then consider this your motivation.Also in the cards (see what I did there?) are an ogre pinata (which I'm surmising will be a BoP item with no charges, like the Goblin Weather Machine). Finally, for those of you who walked the Path of Illidan, there's the Path of Cenarius which leaves flowers in your wake. Nice.
More on the Free Realms trading card game
We first mentioned the Free Realms trading card game when it was announced by SOE back in November of last year, but now we get treated to even more exclusive artwork from the game as it approaches official launch. This TCG will be available in both online and in-store versions where you can battle your friends in the MMO or face-to-face, courtesy of cards made by Topps.So check out the exclusive new pieces straight from SOE's Denver studio, in our gallery below. It includes the full hi-res artwork itself, as well as the final cards as they'll look in the stores. Also be sure to check out the Free Realms website for complete info on these cards, in both online and offline versions.%Gallery-37937%
EU Loot Card winners announced
Well goodness gracious me! We had nearly eighteen hundred comments for this morning's EU loot card giveaway! Not bad eh? Well we /rolled and came up with three lucky winners who will be receiving an email from me shortly!So, without further a do, /drumroll. The lucky winners are:Rugus, who gets the adorable Sandbox Tiger,Finezze (who from his post was dying to be the centre of attention) gets the Epic Purple Shirt and, finally,Elenac, who will be able to challenge her friends to duels with the Foam Sword Rack.Congratulations to all and thanks to everyone who entered.
UPDATE: Blood of Gladiators Loot Card EU giveaway
Hey, European players, psst! I know it's the crack of dawn and to make things even worse it's patch day! Pretty miserable, huh? Well, I have something that might cheer you up! Upper Deck International here in the UK have given WoW Insider a set of shiny, brand spanking new loot cards from the Blood of Gladiators expansion set, which is available right now, just in case you didn't know.And we're giving them away to you, loyal EU readers. All you need to do is leave a comment in this post before 5PM GMT (6PM CET) today, April 15, 2009. We will then randomly choose which of our three lucky readers will win one card each. Be sure to comment with an e-mail address you check often and have easy access to, because that's how we will be contacting our chosen winners with the codes. We have three codes to give away, one for each of the cards in the set. That's the Epic Purple Shirt, the Sandbox Tiger (awwww, bless) and the Foam Sword Rack.The only caveat is you MUST have a European WoW account or the cards won't work (sorry to our American brethren) so please make sure before you enter, okay? Also, you can only enter once. Good luck to all who participate!Thanks to Tom at Upper Deck International's UK office for the codes.UPDATE: The competition is now closed! We'll be announcing the winners at 7pm CET/1pm EST!
Destroy all droids and nab some free loot!
What do bounty hunters and trade federation droids have in common? They're both rewards for playing through the upcoming Star Wars Galaxies trading card game scenario, "Destroy All Droids!"Yes, you too can bask in the glory of a rare card featuring bounty hunter Bane Malar and a nice piece of Star Wars Galaxies in-game loot for your house. All you have to do is simply complete the upcoming card game scenario, which will be released on April 15th. That's it!When you complete the small little storyline, the game will reward you with your card and a trade federation droid vendor for your house. If you beat it again with a new deck that has a different archetype you'll get another copy of the Bane Malar card, but you can only have up to four copies. So, if you're a Star Wars Galaxies player, you might want to check this out even if you aren't a rabid follower of the card game. Free stuff is free stuff!
Breakfast Topic: Wonderful toys
Toys inside a game. Just how good can things get? I'm a huge fan of toys, you see, so when there's an opportunity to exercise this little obsession, I indulge in it. So when I heard about the toy shop in Dalaran, I was absolutely thrilled. I got myself the Train Set (well, actually, my wife gave me the money to buy it), and proceeded to disrupt every raid I could. Of course, when the train destroyer comes to town, I'm picking one up, too, just to be able to make my own train wreck.What other toys would you like to see in-game? I mean, Upper Deck's next expansion, the Blood of Gladiators, has a bunch of new stuff for us to play with. Foam swords and a sandbox spectral tiger (just in case you never lucked out or could afford the real one). I particularly like the ball I use to play fetch with my pets. There's just a lot of room to be silly and playful, I can't imagine Blizzard or the clever guys at Upper Deck running out of ideas. What do you think should be next? Gnome boxing balloons? Throwing pies? I dunno. You guys can probably get more creative.
Try out the Blood Of Gladiators TCG loot on the PTR
A little under a week ago we posted the details of the new TCG exclusive loot items, and more recently we've shown off some video. If you haven't heard about it yet, you can actually do yourself one better if you have access to the PTR: You can head down to Booty Bay and test out these items for free!If you've never traded in a TCG code before, to do it you need to go down to the docks of Booty Bay and look for Landro Longshot. He's flanked by guards, so you can't really miss him. Ask him what he has to offer, select the Blood Of Gladiators set, and put in the following codes for the item you want: For the Sandbox Tiger, input the code 1111. For the Epic Purple Shirt, input the code 2222. For the Foam Sword Rack, input the code 3333. Easy, isn't it? As of this posting the PTR is down for maintenance, so you'll need to wait until later today to try these out. Worth the wait, though? Certainly.
New TCG Loot cards announced for Blood of Gladiators expansion
Our friends over at WoWTCGLoot have posted what they believe are the next three loot cards coming out in the "Blood of Gladiators" expansion of the card game. A Sandbox Tiger, we're told, will be a cooldown-based location toy like the D.I.S.C.O. ball, and will allow you to ride a spectral tiger in place, like a rocking horse. An Epic Purple Shirt will not only look epic, but should allow you to do a special emote (probably /flex) that will make you "the center of attention." And perhaps more exciting, a Foam Swords Rack will let players around you grab foam swords and swordfight to the finish, complete with a declared winner. Very cool. The first time we'll see these in stores will likely be the upcoming preview of the new expansion, taking place on the weekend of March 7th. Since these likely came from information found in the PTR, they are, of course, subject to change. Upper Deck will likely share a few screenshots and some more information on these soon, and when they do, we'll let you know.
