the-burning-crusade
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Blizz opens up brand new realm, more transfer opportunities
Blizzard has launched the first new realm since the release of The Burning Crusade. It's a PvE realm called Ghostlands, and it's part of the latest batch of free realm transfers. You ready for the list of available transfers? Okay, here we go!If you're from the PvE realms Aerie Peak, Aggramar, Alexstrasza, Alleria, Argent Dawn, Blackhand, Cenarius, Doomhammer, Hellscream, or Whisperwind, you can move to Ghostlands.The rest are PvP servers. Arthas, Burning Blade, Illidan, Skullcrusher, and Warsong residents may all move to Balnazzar. Folks from Mal'Ganis, Mug'thol, Sargeras, Tichondrius, and Twisting Nether may move to Onyxia. Finally, if you've been playing on Gorefiend, Kel'Thuzad, Mannoroth, Shattered Hand, or Smolderthorn, you can jump on over to Malorne.Phew. So there it is. Anyway, it's exciting that a new realm is opening up. The community's been twiddling its thumbs for a while now.
LotRO and TBC honored in GameSpy 2007 awards
GameSpy recently released the latest iteration of its annual best-of list. The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar was ranked #6 in the best PC games of 2007 list. World of Warcraft's The Burning Crusade expansion also got some attention. It came in at #5 on the same list -- just an inch ahead of LotRO. However, LotRO also walked away with a bigger prize -- the title of PC MMO Game of the Year.Both LotRO and TBC failed to beat blockbuster first-person-shooter fare like BioShock and Call of Duty 4 in the overall PC list, but still, this was a pleasant cap to a strong year for both titles, especially LotRO, which saw promising sales figures and a warm critical reception right out of the launch bay door this Spring.TBC and LotRO are also nominees for various "gamers' choice" awards. The voting for those awards comes to a close today, and the winners will be announced tomorrow.
Voodoo Extreme's MMO of the year poll
It's about the right time of year for it, and with perfect timing Voodoo Extreme has a poll up for (MMO)RPG Game of the Year.Being in the same category as The Witcher & Mass Effect seems harsh for the MMOs listed, as some great titles went retail in 2007. Was Lord of the Rings Online really just this year? We've also had the first expansion to one of the biggest games of all time, and a minor explosion of Free-to-Play MMOs -- which of course won't feature in a commercial games poll, but they're still surging through the market even so.Overall, 2007 has been a solid year for MMO fans. It may end up being remembered as the year of Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, and Bioshock -- but then 2008 may redress the balance somewhat.Is there an MMO of the year for you, so far?
The Daily Grind: What's the rush?
Somebody always does it. Shortly after any expansion launches you can expect someone to plow through all those levels and reach the maximum cap in less than a few days. This recently happened again in Rise of Kunark, 36 hours after the EverQuest 2 expansion hit desktops, Monk Taucher from the guild Second Dawn leveled from 70-80 netting a 100 dollar prize and their claim to short-lived leveling fame. I can understand the achievement aspect of wanting to level as fast as possible, reach the end and be done with it, but even so in an expansion hardcore players who raid won't be able to raid until their guild catches up. Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of relishing content instead of whining about how there is nothing to do on the forums? Or the all-to-common argument amongst the core hardcores that their guild is slow because they slack and can't play 12 hours a day? I know we all enjoy different things about a MMOG, but leveling up and waiting for your guild to catch-up isn't very enjoyable -- I've been there myself. At least it took more than a few people to achieve this goal when World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade launched. Gullerbone, a mage leveled from 60 to 70 in a matter of 28 hours with the help of some friends using area effect spells to grind out the levels faster. I'm a firm believer that everyone should enjoy the game how they see fit as long as they aren't breaking the rules (dupes, gold-farming, etc.) but I still think leveling this fast is a bit over the top. I think at some point we all power-level and wish we would reach a certain level already. That's understandable, but as soon as an expansion launches? If you could, would you skip to the end after an expansion launched or do you prefer to take it in small chunks and get there when you get there?
World of Warcraft still growing -- 9.3 million served
Gamasutra reports that Vivendi, the parent company of Blizzard, has seen its Q3 2007 sales go up 19% over the last quarter. Vivendi credits this growth partially to the Chinese release of The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, which occurred in Q3. The company revealed that World of Warcraft now has 9.3 million subscribers -- 300,000 more than the the number reported last quarter.That means that WoW has grown by the size of one and a half EVE Onlines or two whole City of Heroeses in just a few months. Or put another way, the population of World of Warcraft is now greater than the population of Sweden. We think it's safe to say that World of Warcraft will be the dominant title in the industry for a while longer.
Breakfast Topic: Outland or Azeroth?
There are those who claim that since the release of The Burning Crusade, the game has been ruined. Outland quest rewards are too powerful, rendering most Azerothian goods obsolete and making much previous raiding experience pointless. And addition of Paladins to the Horde and Shamans to the Alliance ruined any unique sense of play that came from one side or the other. Such players claim that The Burning Crusade ruined the entire game. On the other hand, there are plenty of players who say that doing any pre-BC content now (i.e. leveling a new alt) is simply painful, because of fewer quests per zone, more travelling per quest, and generally slow and inefficient leveling. These people say some time needs to be spent on pre-BC content to bring it up to par with the different style of BC zones. And this morning I'm asking what you think. Has The Burning Crusade spoiled or perfected World of Warcraft? Is Outland superior to Azeroth or vice versa?
Insider Trader: Uldaman or bust!
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.It's a brave new world for young enchanters training in the mysterious ways of their craft. Enchanting's infamous artisan-level training roadblock used to demand that enchanters fight their way to a trainer located inside the Uldaman instance in order to train new skills, formula by formula. Nowadays, many players who own The Burning Crusade expansion can avoid this dastardly errand by porting across the Dark Portal to Outlands enchanter trainers. (No, you can't physically step through the portal until level 58 -- but you CAN accept a mage portal or warlock summons at any level -- and what a great place to be hearthstoned!)As you'd expect, there are a couple of caveats to this solution. All but one of the enchanter trainers in the Outlands (including those in Shattrath City, Honor Hold, Thrallmar and The Stormspire in Netherstorm) are Grand Master Enchanters who train enchanters from a minimum skill level of 300. The lone Outlands trainer handling lower-level training is Enchantress Volali. Unfortunately, her persnickety choice of residence in the Scryer's Tier in Shattrath City puts her squarely off-limits to anyone who's chosen to ally with the Aldor and to all young Draenei, who are automatically friendlier with the Draenei Aldor. (Young Blood Elf enchanters, who are naturally on better terms with their kinsmen the Scryers, can visit Enchantress Volali without issue.) If you're any race but Draenei and haven't yet chosen sides in the Aldor/Scryer faction tussle, you can train with Enchantress Volali in Shattrath City at the artisan level or below and with the Grand Master Enchanters above 300. But if you're a Draenei or less than neutral faction with the Scryers, you'll need to stick to the old-world trainers until you reach 300 -- and for artisan-level training, it's back to Uldaman for j00!
"Stranglethorn Hole" and the doom of casual WoW?
Recent reports that the general population of WoW players may be going down for the first time cause some concern, enough to even have our post on the subject listed on the BBC for a while. Our readers gave lots of reasons why something was missing from The Burning Crusade, from problems with the new raids, new items, or even lack of anything actually "new" at all. Granted, it is too soon to say whether people are leaving WoW en masse or not, but the concerns raised here are still valid.One of the main problems our readers cited was leveling boredom. The game before Outland is a bottleneck for casual players who want to explore other classes and playstyles but find that getting where they want to be with their new favorite alt would take more tedium and repetition than they're willing to tolerate. Some have the patience and dedication for it, but for others it feels like an impassible jungle.Stranglethorn Vale, sometimes called the "Stranglethorn Hole" (coined by Tobold in reference to black holes, I think), has been the prime example of 1-60 leveling boredom, because at some point between levels 30 and 45, quests in most other areas just dry up, and you're left with little choice other than to help out the goblins in Booty Bay. The Gaming Fascist complains that he couldn't get any characters through the Vale without it feeling like "an affliction or a chore, something I don't really enjoy and fall back to when times get too boring." This was especially infuriating for him since he apparently chose a PvP server and he got ganked a lot there. Anyone tends to feel frustrated and hopeless when your goal is so far away that you have no reasonable means to achieve it.We took a light-hearted look into the future a couple weeks ago, to see what solutions might present themselves in a few years as this problem gets increasingly severe. The fact is that has to be done for casuals who can't or don't want to go raiding, and if trying out new classes and isn't really a feasible option, then what's to prevent them from feeling stuck with nothing to do? More reputations to grind?
WoW Moviewatch: Tempest Keep Exploration
After taking out Magtheridon, the guild Nihilum has been able to complete the attunement quest to access the Eye of Tempest Keep. And since they can get there and we can't, they've decided to share some video of the place with the rest of us, giving us a first look at the place. And if the video's not enough for you, there's also a preview of the instance with some pretty sweet screenshots.[Via World of Raids]
Breakfast Topic: How many times have you changed your talents?
With the new talent trees and the challenges of leveling, I've had to adjust my talents several times. On my warlock, I did a post-2.0 build before the expansion pack that was very heavy demonology, a leveling build that was heavy affliction, then I tried multiple builds for post-70, settling on a hybrid 40/0/21 build similar to my old raiding build.Fortunately I'd had my old raiding spec for a very very long time, and my cost to switch everything now is up to just 30G. How many times have you unlearned your talents lately? What's your re-spec cost up to?
Confessions of an Outland clown, part 2
I'm still feeling awfully silly running around in my set of Outland greens and blues. And I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks my character's appearance has taken a turn for the worst since leveling past 60. Even Drysc has chimed in on the topic, telling us......leveling items are almost always go to look more or less "plain". We want the end-game items to really stand out, both in ability/power and the way they look. The items you had at 60 were the end-game items, they were the best of the best and their look really showed that visually just running around the city. As you're leveling again you may be finding better gear than what you had, but it's not the uber end-game gear, and so it sort of has a plain look to match.Of course, I don't think that my complaint is over the fact that the gear looks "plain" -- in fact, I think "plain" would be a major improvement over what I'm wearing now. And while all of us want the incredible end-game gear to look, well, incredible, that doesn't seem like a great reason to make the rest of the gear in the game look awful, or just as bad -- boring and recycled. With most of the sights in Outland making me want to gape in wonder, the fact that my character would look about the same (perhaps better -- I don't recall low level greens being this jarringly colored) if I went and geared myself with the best that Elwynn Forest had to offer is a little disappointing. How could the current system be improved? Read on for some thoughts.
Ding! 70!
My warlock hit level 70 during one of the horrendous trash pulls in the Auchindoun's Shadow Labyrinth. It took about 2 weeks, a little over but for the first four days my server was unplayable. I have a few suggestions for those of you who are trying to get 70 in the minimum amount of time spent. First, get out of Hellfire Peninsula as quickly as possible. There are so many people in that zone that I spent way too much time waiting for spawns. Second, unless you are a mage getting powerleveled with the help of a entire guild, quests are the way to go, not grinding and not instances. Finally, my pattern was Hellfire Peninsula to Zangarmarsh to Nagrand to Terokkar Forest to Blade's Edge to Shadowmoon Valley. I did Nagrand first Terokkar Forest was very heavily in use, and I wanted to stay out of that mess. They're about the same level, so it works out. I haven't even been into the Netherstorm area. Why did I skip Netherstorm? I'm a warlock. Shadowmoon Valley is full of demons. I was completely playing to my strengths. I started The Burning Crusade with about 150 gold on my warlock. I ended with a tad over 1500, not counting green items (sold via my bank alt) but counting all consumables, repairs, flights, and other expenses. Whenever there were quest rewards with no usable options, I picked the 2 handed weapon or the plate armor, those items tended to sell better. Unless you blow all of your cash on tradeskills, you should have basic flying mount cash very quickly.I managed to find groups to finish nearly all of my group quests on an ad hoc basis. On a couple of quests I got help from in-guild. Now that I've finished leveling, my goals are to finish up all my keys, do some instances, and help the rest of the people in my guild level.
Forum Post of the Day: Randomly funny things in Outland
Have you seen anything in Outland that's just made you stop and laugh? Commenters in this thread are sharing the humorous things they've found in Outland, starting with this random chatter you'll find if you idle in Honor Hold for very long:Magus Filinthus says: A mailbox? Well is that not the salt on the wounds! Twenty years cut-off from the world and now a mailbox! WONDERFUL!Ah, so many funny moments, so little time.
Breakfast Topic: Your first weekend in the Burning Crusade
As we wind into our first weekend since the much anticipated release of the Burning Crusade, I wonder what everyone's up to. Some people around the world are already hitting level 70 -- a feat, which, with my leveling speed, astounds me -- and I've even seen the first level 70 on my home realm. Of my immediate circle of friends I have a few people of lower level who haven't bothered to buy the expansion yet, several pushing their mains as far as they can, others starting anew with Blood Elves or Draenei, and yet others who can't decide which alts to play. With a priest at 62, a rogue at 61, and a new paladin at 14, I think I fall into that last category. So what have you been up to since the release, and what does the weekend have in store for you -- in Azeroth or Outland?
Draenei have left the Exodar!
EVERYBODY PANIC! Actually, it seems as though everyone else wanting to quickly level a Draenei did just what I did. They got off of Azuremyst Isle as quickly as possible, and headed back to comfortable and familiar hunting grounds. In my case, that was Goldshire. I can only imagine how those poor humans felt as they saw a half-dozen squid-faced monsters earth-shocking their way through the Fargodeep Mine. Sure, the puny humans fled, but that's because they understood the might of the Draenei when we had a raid of 2 to take down Hogger. The wide-open spaces of your Goldshire amused us, and soon we were taking over logging duties in Eastvale, also slaying those silly little murloc things by the dozen. GLURGLURGLELURGLE indeed. Running back into Stormwind, I was constantly accosted by people saying things such as, "How's the weather up there?" and "Nice face, blue face." Do they not realize that we're only barely taller than night elves, WHO ARE ALSO BLUE TINGED? Words hurt, people, words hurt. However, one funny soul decided to follow me around asking "Can you make trinkcits?" Yes, "trinkcits." No, I cannot make your "trinckits" yet. I can make a little golem who spits healing love at me. I can even make copper rings if you ask nicely, and give me some money for this weekend party the Naga are having. I think the point I'd like to make is that yes, we're Draenei, yes we're new to you, but we're not new to us. We've been traveling around in our spacesh...interdimensional vessel.. for quite some time, and if it weren't for those accursed elves (blood not night, we love you, really we do) we'd have continued past your Scourge-infested world and on to happier times with the Naaru and the warmth of the light. So please, ask your children not to tug on our tentacles, do not call us "squidbillies" behind our backs, and do not assume we all know jewelcrafting (even if we do). We're regular folk, just like you and that gnome over there, and we're here to help you fight the Burning Legion. Now, can I get a summon?
Some people have all the luck...
When Ramanan tipped us off that he'd managed to snag a copy of the Burning Crusade on January the 12th -- four entire days before the official release -- the very first thing I did was to scout all possible stores near my house to see if I could find anyone else making a similar mistake. No such luck! However, despite Wal-Mart's careful planning, it seems that at least some stores have stocked shelves with the expansion a bit early. Ramanan made off with a copy from his local Wal-Mart and was able to install and upgrade his account -- though it still sounds as though expansion content is blocked. At least for a while longer.
Faience's Adventures in Outland: It's the end of the world as we know it...
...and after my dozenth death, I'm not so sure that I feel fine. Sure, it started out all fun and games with Tyren's announcement on the forums that there might be some "cool events" on the beta realms this evening. But cool, I wonder, for whom? Certainly not for the poor denizens of the now ravaged Shattrath City -- the Outland's only major city. On the beta realm Hellfire, CMs Ordinn and Tseric orchestrated the destruction of this fine city, throwing wave after wave of bosses at the city's populace. Want to see what happens when the game's most dangerous monsters converge on a single city center? Well, read on to find out.
Faience's adventures in Outland: Elites? What elites?
I'm sure we're all familiar with the elite quests scattered throughout Azeroth. Or if not familiar with the particulars of each and every one of them, at least aware that there exists such a thing as quests that are flagged "elite" that involve killing more powerful "elite" monsters. Well, in the Burning Crusade you won't be seeing any of those. And, no it's not because Blizzard has decided to remove elites from the game. Instead, Blizzard has dropped the "elite" flag from quests and replaced it with a "group" flag, which I first noticed when questing on my new level 12 Blood Elf. Curious about the above Anok'suten quest, I located a partner and headed out to complete it immediately -- in the end it involved killing a single level 11 elite, surrounded by non-elites of around the same level. I might have been able to solo it -- but the suggested players hint is appreciated.And this trend continues into Outland -- only the elites are a bit bigger.
Countdown to Burning Crusade: Vote for day 7 winners!
We had a ton of excellent entries for the Alliance caption contest on day 7 of our countdown to the Burning Crusade, we've narrowed the field down to ten finalists -- and we want your help to pick the winner! You have 24 hours to submit your votes, which gives you until 5:30PM EST on Friday -- so get voting, everyone! Who's the winner of our Alliance caption contest? Darwf: May I help you? Night Elf: Uh yes, where's Stormwind? Crap, you're a guy. From far away you all look the same. Ok, I'm only gonna tell you this one more time. Dancing like Michael Jackson will *not* get you hot Night Elf chicks. Donald Trump brings his army of real estate to bear against an increasingly chunky Rosie O'Donnell. You are the Barry Bonds of dwarves! Hey, where the gnome women at? 1960 called, they want their overalls back. My name is Inigo Montoya. you stole my shoulder pads... prepare to die. Dwarf: Actually, I prefer to think of myself as 'in weapons range of your groin'. I wish I knew how to quit you. Free polls from Pollhost.com
Around Azeroth Extra: Chaos at the Dark Portal
So you've probably heard there was this patch today, and with it some sort of world event involving the Dark Portal. But perhaps you're stuck at work, school, or somewhere else where you're forbidden to log on to check out the excitement. Well, Around Azeroth is here to help! This shot, courtesy of Flyv of the guild We Know on Eitrigg, shows you exactly what you're missing right now. And I only imagine the crowds will get worse as we hit into prime US playing time...Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part.See more of your pics from Around Azeroth.
