the-burning-crusade
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Breakfast Topic: What will you be playing in the expansion?
We're getting closer and closer to the expansion's release date, and if you're anything like me, you're making plans! As a long-time Horde aligned healbot, I'm excited about the addition of paladins to the Horde, and will be making one of the hundreds of newbie Horde paladins -- and possibly making it my new main character. And with the countless changes to classes across the board, I can't be the only one planning on having a different main in the Burning Crusade than I do now. So, what do you think you'll be playing in the expansion?
More beta expansion changes
The latest beta patch has come down with some interesting changes. As usual, some of them are good, some of them are unbelievably good, and some of them will make you want to cry. My thoughts: rogues have come out nicely, if the unofficial notes are to be believed. And by "nicely" I mean "my main is now a rogue!" Also in the patch and not in the notes -- a couple of warlock nerfs. You may check out Nethaera's official notes and Idejder's unofficial notes, or read on to see both.
Holiday 2006 best bets for Mac gamers
With Apple's transition to Intel processors completed earlier this year, and emerging technologies such as Cider promising full compatibility with Windows games, the Mac platform is seeing even fewer native releases these days. But there are still some gems for dedicated Mac gamers this holiday season: Age of Empires III Big Bang Brain Games Call of Duty 2 Cars: The Videogame Civilization IV Dominions 3: The Awakening Quake 4 Sims 2: Nightlife Spongebob Squarepants Diner Dash WingNuts 2: Raina's Revenge World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (coming in Jan.) X-Plane 8.5 Apple's gaming page has additional information, and check out last year's holiday recommendations for a little more variety on your Mac.
Burning Crusade FAQ update
Blizzard has posted an update to the Burning Crusade FAQ adding some new questions and answers to the list.Most of the updates center around things such as raids and dungeons. Questions answered include: Will there be anymore 40 man raids? Answer, no. Will existing raid encounters have their caps decreased? Answer, no. And, will the current reset timers on raids be changed? Again, no.A few interesting tidbits include some info on the difficulty settings for dungeons in the expansion. According to the FAQ all dungeons will have a normal and heroic difficulty setting. In order to unlock the heroic level of a dungeon, players will need to be level 70 and achieve other as-of-yet-unnamed objectives. The difficulty settings will only apply to non-raid dungeons.The FAQ also hints at a world event to open the Dark Portal and relays a little trash talk from Illidan: Will it be possible to kill Illidan in the Burning Crusade? Illidan doesn't think so. As a matter of fact, he's probably thinking about destroying your character for simply entertaining the thought.
Latest beta patch changes
The most recent patch to the beta Burning Crusade client has brought some interesting new changes to the game. And though there's been no official announcement, some of the less than positive changes are already sparking heated debate on the forums. Read on for details (primarily via World of Raids), and decide for yourself whether or not the sky is falling.
Breakfast Topic: Worried about your class?
The Burning Crusade is coming -- and with it comes numerous changes for all classes. Some of them are crazy good, and others are, well, more questionable. But with changes coming every day, I'm not sure any class can be positive what to expect. I'm a little concerned -- not that I think my class of choice, the priest, is going to be worthless, but the classes talent options don't seem to sparkle the way some other classes do. And, yes, after playing two priests up to level 60, I'm wondering if I want to play a different class in the Burning Crusade. But I don't think priests came off the worst for the current state of changes -- but who knows what will happen before Blizzard finishes their tweaking. And what about you? Do you have major worries about the state of your class? Or are you keeping up hope?
Forum Post of the Day: Druid tanks from a healing perspective
There's little discussion on this post so far, but the few posts in the thread thus far are rather interesting. As far as tanking goes, the warrior has always been king, with a much wider array of abilities to hold aggro and reduce their own damage taken. But when the Burning Crusade hits store shelves, druids and paladins will both find themselves with a wider array of tanking abilities -- druids with a hardier bear form and paladins with a much nicer protection tree. And while I still feel that protection warriors will be the cream of the crop, I wonder if druids and paladins won't offer their own advantages -- in certain situations. However, warriors and paladins maintain the advantage of block and parry, neither of which druids are capable of. But whether this means druids will be the Burning Crusade's third class tank or whether their immense stamina and armor ratings make up for it -- I think I'll really have to get some experience with it before I could decide.Forum Post of the Day attempts to highlight interesting and constructive posts (I know, I know -- I'm severely restricting the available options!) from the official forums. Seen a post recently that's made you think? Let us know about it!
Why hello, Easter eggs!
If you've explored a little bit, you've no doubt come across numerous Easter eggs -- amusing and sometimes obscure references to the real world that are just enough to make you grin when you encounter them. And, of course, the Burning Crusade has not been immune to such treatment, and we probably haven't found the half of them yet. Who is the Blood Elf pictured to the right? Well, according to the game, it's Haris Pilton <Socialite>. You can also meet her pet, a wolf named Tinkerbell. And then there's Adam Heman (complete with tiger), Slim <Shady Dealer>, Floyd Pinkus, and even Eyonix himself (he's an innkeeper). World of Raids has a thread covering a few of these (including a full version of the Haris Pilton shot), a link to a screenshot gallery at JudgeHype with more (the site is in French, but I'm sure we can all figure out how to click on screenshots), and then there's the soon-to-be-legendary thread about Eyonix's in-game appearance.
Burning Crusade skill updates
Well, I'd say "update," really, since the priest racial abilities, now officially confirmed, were already known from beta reports. What is new, however, is some major changes to the Warlock's spellstone. Not sure what a spellstone is? Well, that's understandable -- at present, they're conjered off-hand items that provide a spell crit bonus and can be consumed to absorb magical damage and remove all magical effects from the user. This later was always problematic, as it would remove negative effects, but also wipe high-mana cost buffs like Demon Armor (which costs 1580 mana to cast at level 60). The fact that they were off-hand meant that you couldn't use them with any of the wide array of nice caster staffs -- but they'll now be equipped in the wand slot rather than the off-hand slot. Beyond that, its effect has also been changed -- now it removes all harmful magical effects. And instead of being consumed on use, it has a 3 minute cooldown. I'd say these are pretty solid changes, which will mean my warlock will be seeing a lot more spellstone usage in the future![Note: Linking the European site because the US site seems to be offline this afternoon.]
Burning Crusade release date confirmed
The push back to a January release was disappointing to say the least. And many forum posters have been speculating -- if it were pushed back once, couldn't it be pushed back again? Well, Nethaera says no. Replying to a post citing a January 16the release date (via a European press release), Nethaera says, "This is a solid date. It will not be pushed back." Considering Blizzard's usual reluctance to say anything concrete, I tend to believe them when they do. (Naivete, perhaps.)[Thanks, Yz and Tom!]
Please bear with us...
There really is a story -- perhaps even a funny one, behind all of these awful puns. Occupants of the Hellfire Penninsula in the Outlands, the Fel Reaver is a terrifying sight -- level 70 elites that easily take down lone players in one or two hits. The ground shakes as it approaches and it makes a sound like a train -- but as of the last beta patch, their huge and ominous forms were replaced. With grizzly bear models. As you can imagine, much hilarity has ensued. In the form of countless "bear" related puns...[Thanks, Mordiceius]
Expansion blacksmithing items
In the most recent professions preview, Blizzard mentioned epic blacksmithing gear that would be upgradable -- it would improve as you progressed through the game rather than being quickly replaced by dungeon drops. Of course, no details were provided at the time. However, the dedicated folks on the World of Raids forums have rounded up some screenshots from the blacksmithing trainer in the beta -- showing what the blacksmith to be can expect from the expansion. There appear to be one-handed and two-handed options for each weapon type, as well as a mail and plate set of armor for the armorsmiths. (My question: where's the gear for a caster style paladin?)
Around Azeroth: The crypts of Karazhan
Reader Matt sends in this, one of the creepiest shots of Azeroth I've seen. (And beyond "creepy" I can't come up with any good words to describe it.) It is the interior of the crypts of Karazhan, dungeon to be opened with the Burning Crusade. Not officially opened, but some people will always find ways...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.
World PvP in the Burning Crusade: Nagrand
World of Raids has a great preview of Nagrand -- covering both the gear you can get there and how to get it. The zone sounds to be a PvP playground -- though obtaining gear there will require both PvE and PvP work within the zone. The rewards are nice blues (with a single epic jewel) that seem to be not too difficult to obtain, at least not compared to current PvP gear standards. They are purchased with tokens, one type of token acquired from killing opponents in PvP within the zone (one Halaa battle token per kill) and the other type acquired by killing NPC opponents within the zone (Crystal Powder, which drops from NPCs, is turned in for Halaa research tokens). The gear itself costs between 20 to 40 of the battle tokens as well as 1 or 2 research tokens (requiring 20 to 40 Crystal Powder), with the epic costing 500 battle tokens. So I'd imagine that a few hours of PvP could well result in several pieces of gear, if you were after it. To access buy gear and obtain the research tokens, your faction must have access to the neutral city of Halaa in the center of the zone. To do this, you must kill off all the guards and occupy the city -- a "bomb run" to slaughter the guards shown in the video above. Such fun!
New battleground stats in the Burning Crusade
This isn't exactly groundbreaking news, but is an interesting new quirk in the expansion's battleground stats screen. As you can see in the screenshot above, in addition to the usual information on killing blows, deaths, honorable kills, and bonus honor, there's also data on damage done and healing done -- providing us with with an interesting new perspective on battleground participation. I like it!P.s.: The link from this story goes to a German site with a slightly larger screenshot -- I don't know much German, except that clicking "schliessen" in the upper right will close those pop-up ads.
New BC information quietly posted [Updated]
Stealth buffs seem so silly to me. Why would they want to sneak in good stuff without announcing it? But there's a new section in the Burning Crusade spells page for every class giving information on spells obtained from talents, and it contains some interesting info that's not matched by the talent calculator. (Maybe these are just typos?)More than one commenter has noted the pet abilities were linked from the main page. So, less than stealthy... However, with the flakey uptime of the main page, lack of forum post announcement, and lack of mirrored information on the (occasionally more reliable) European page, I didn't see the announcement until, obviously, after posting this.Specifically, on the priest's page, I see the following changes (okay, they're not all buffs): Pain Suppression: Now has a 30 yard range -- suggesting it's targetable. Circle of Healing: Now has a super exciting 3 minute cooldown. Vampiric Touch: Now instant cast. Nethaera has confirmed that these changes were a mistake -- the talent calculator's version is accurate. (In other news, my priest is back on retirement status.) On the warlock's page, there's a great new listing of Felguard abilities: Demonic Frenzy, Requires Level 56, Passive: The Felguard's damaging melee attacks cause a demonic frenzy, increasing attack power by 5% for 10 sec. This effect can stack up to 10 times. Avoidance, Requires Level 60, Passive: Increases your chance to avoid area of effect attacks by an additional 50%. Anguish, Requires Level 50, 90 Mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 5 sec cooldown: Taunts the creature, increasing the chance that it will attack the Felguard. Cleave, Rank 1, Requires Level 50, 295 Mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown: A sweeping attack that does your weapon damage plus 32 to the target and his nearest ally. (Rank 2: 295 Mana, plus 50 damage; Rank 3: 295 Mana, plus 78 damage) Intercept, Rank 1, Requires Level 52, 145 Mana, 8-25 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown: Charge an enemy, causing 65 damage and stunning it for 3 sec. (Rank 2: 160 Mana, 85 damage; Rank 3: 195 Mana, 105 damage) On the mage's page, there's a new listing of water elemental abilities: Waterbolt, Requires Level 50, 224 Mana, 35 yd range, 2.5 sec cast: Deals 486 to 558 Frost damage to the target. Frost Nova, Requires Level 50, 313 Mana, 35 yd range, Instant cast, 25 sec cooldown: Blasts enemies in a 8 yard radius for 114 to 126 Frost damage and freezes them in place for up to 8 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Update: Update on "stealth" status of changes, update on the legitimacy of the priest changes, and added water elemental info.
Hey! Update your info!
I know, when you log on to the game those first messages tend to fly by so fast that you might not notice them at all. But these yellow text messages tend to be important... unlike the nonsense that's likely to come after. Yellow text informs us of emergency reboots and these login messages usually informative of things so important that everyone needs to see them. But this one? It tells us to make sure our contact information is up to date -- you know, in case they need to contact us. Now, I know I'm getting dangerously close to the realm of conspiracy theory, but why would Blizzard need to contact us? And why would anything be important enough to make an in-game alert to advise us to update our contact information? The obvious answer to me is beta invites -- though I may just have Burning Crusade on the brain. It would not at all surprise me, however, to see the beta opened up to a larger and larger pool of players as the expansion release nears, giving Blizzard a heavier stress test of the Outlands zones. Of course, this may not actually be a sign of that. Maybe Blizzard just thinks it's really important to update your account information.
Burning Crusade Talent Updates
They just keep coming. Today's changes focus on the shaman, with several tweaks for their elemental and enhancement trees. I don't find these changes awe-inspiring, but they aren't bad news, either. Parry - Renamed Spirit Weapons. Now "Gives a chance to parry enemy melee attacks and reduces the threat generated by your melee attacks by 15%." Mental Quickness - Moved to Unleashed Rage position. Unleashed Rage - Moved to Dual Wield Specialization position. Dual Wield Specialization - Moved to Mental Quickness position, reduced to 3 ranks for 2/4/6% hit chance. Still requires Dual Wield. Totem of Wrath - Now "...increases the chance to hit and critically hit with spells by 3% to all..." Elemental Precision - Now "Increases your chance to hit with Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 1/2/3% and reduces the threat caused by Fire, Frost and Nature spells by 4/7/10%."
A later release means... more beta invites?
Well, Nethaera didn't phrase it quite in that way, but she did confirm that there are still opportunities to get a beta invite. While Blizzcon attendees and beta contest winners have guaranteed entry, there are still invites for players who were neither. Nethaera advises us to keep an eye on fan sites and Blizzard's own site for possible information on how to get yourself into the beta test -- though, no, she can't tell you when you might expect to see anything.
5-player epics confirmed in the expansion
In a post on the beta forums, Tigole has confirmed that we will see epic drops in 5-player dungeons on "hard" mode. Level 70 dungeons on "hard" will have epic loot tables and lower level dungeons on "hard" will have level 70 loot tables. Of course, without solid information (yet!) on what drops and where, raid dungeons may still be contain the very best items -- but for now you can look forward to finding some very nice gear without gathering more than 5 other players. Anti-social folks like myself are no doubt rejoicing at this very moment.[Thanks, Chris!]
