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More Details on the Arena System
We didn't know much about the upcoming arena PvP system that's coming with the expansion. However, this afternoon CM Drysc graced us with some additional details on how the arenas will work, and a bit about how the new ranking system will work - and how Blizzard is trying to make these arenas an even playing ground. So without further ado, here's what we know about the arena: When a player enters an arena battle, all buffs and conjured items are purged/deleted. This is done to ensure no outside buffs or items from members outside of your team are able to be used in an arena battle. No consumables other than bandages and conjured items can be used while in the arena. There will be a waiting area similar to the current battlegrounds where players on the team will be able to conjure items and cast buffs. Abilities/spells/items with cooldowns longer than 15 minutes cannot be used while in the arena. Each arena team will be given a rating, and will be matched up in the arena queue against teams of a similar rating (matching within that specific cross-realm battlegroup). As time progresses the matching system will broaden its search up to a limit if a closely rated team cannot be found. Ratings adjustments are made in the same way that ELO ratings adjustments are made. This system works by adjusting each arena team's rating from a specific match based on the rating of the team they are up against. If a team wins against a team of a higher rating, the increase of their arena rating would be much higher than if they had won against a team of a lower rating. This system will help promote players improving their skill and besting teams which may have previously held the top spots. At the end of each week, characters receive arena points based on their team's rating. A team must have fought a minimum number of battles for the week, which we have announced as currently set to 10 games. A player must have played in at least 30% of the team's battles that week in order to be eligible to receive arena points. Each eligible player will then receive a fraction of the teams total awarded points to spend on arena rewards. Players may spend their points on arena rewards, or save their points until they have enough to get the rewards they desire. There is a limit to the number of points a player can stockpile, which is currently planned to be as high as the most expensive item. At the end of a season, players on a team are given a title based on their team's relative position on the ladder which will last through the next arena season. [Fan art by Guillaume Bonnet]
Breakfast Topic: Favorite New Mount?
The title says it all. We now know what the new mounts are for the Draenei and Blood Elves, so what's your favorite? While we don't have screenshots of either yet, we know that the Draenei will be riding the elephant-like elekk, and the Blood Elves will be riding on cockatrices. While a number of posters seem to think that a cockatrice is some sort of chicken (I've also seen comparisons to Final Fantasy's Chocobo), but the half-bird, half-lizard has the chance to look awfully interesting. Of course, there could be a lot of differences between our perception of these creatures and Blizzard's perception of these creatures. But I'm personally looking forward to a gnome riding an elephant...
Debuff Limit to Change in Expansion
Back at the dawn of time, the debuff limit was 8. That means only 8 debuffs could be on a monster at any given time - which lead to severe restrictions when you had 40 players attacking the same thing in a raid environment. (You would either always have important debuffs being bumped off or you would have very strict raid rules which only allowed certain debuffs to be used by certain players.) And warlocks, whose DOT spells actually made up good portion of their damage done, were reduced to shadowbolting machines. The debuff limit was later doubled, and currently sits at 16, which allows for a lot more flexibility. However, recently the CMs dropped what I consider to be quite the bombshell: in the expansion, in addition to smaller raid size, the debuff limit will be increased again - to 40. Combined with 25-player raids, that's a heck of a lot of debuffs...!
Breakfast Topic: Why Not Change History?
With the expansion, we'll be able to venture into the Caverns of Time, where we'll be able to travel through time and visit crucial moments of Azeroth's history. We're tasked with safeguarding the past, but... why? Will Alliance players really be enthusiastic about aiding in Thrall's escape from Durnholde Keep? Do any of us want to return to the past only to idly watch as Medivh opens the Dark Portal, for example? It seems Nozdormu really needs to work on his advertising pitch...And if we have the power to travel to the past, why not use it to fix things? Tired of farming to create a Scepter of the Shifting Sands? Why not just go back and prevent Fandral Staghelm from smashing it in the first place - or better yet, take it from him? So we can travel into the past - but why don't we change it?
Another Burning Crusade Preview
When I first started babbling excitedly to a friend about the major PvP changes coming with the Burning Crusade, he thought I must be making it up. I sent him links, and he still wondered if this was just some kind of joke. It all sounds like fake patch notes, he explained - where someone has read the forums for a while and bundled every complaint into a patch. Well, this Burning Crusade preview at Gamespot mainly offers confirmation to hopeless pessimists that these changes are, indeed, real.But it does have some unique pieces of news, including the following... The difficulty settings on dungeons currently only apply to expansion dungeons, though they've been thinking about adding these features to some of the game's older dungeons. The Dreanei mount will be the "elekk" - which Gamespot describes as a creature resembling a war elephant The Blood Elf mount will be the cockatrice - presumably one similar to myth. Besides the Nether Drake, there will be faction-specific flying mounts. The Horde will get an armored wyvern and the Alliance will have armored griffons. Brief previews of the zones Silvermoon Castle (home of the Blood Elves), Exodar (home of the Dreanei), Tempest Keep, Hellfire Citadel, Collfang Reservoir, Karazahn Tower, and Nagrand.
Joystiq Interviews Jeff Kaplan
Joystiq managed to get a interview with World of Warcraft's lead designer, Jeff Kaplan, (you may know him as "Tigole" on the forums) - and there's some interesting stuff here. Of course there's a lot of info here, but some of the most interesting talk revolves around the new PvP system. As was posted earlier, the system will consist of arena matches of 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 which will can be alliance v. horde, alliance v. alliance, or horde v. horde and cross-server. And the honor system as we know it will be gone entirely - to quote Kaplan: It's a competitive-based ladder that uses a rating system similar to the chess ELO rating. One of the key differences is that we require a minimum number of games that you have to play. Unlike in the chess system where if you're on top, you can just sit there, we wanted to ensure that the No. 1 guy can be knocked off his top spot. But, we don't require too many games. We'll require something around ten games. Further, honor points as we know them will be significantly changed. There will be no more honor decay and instead of determining your PVP rank, the honor points you accumulate can be spent to purchase PVP gear. And other tidbits touched on by the interview include... News that there's been some thought about implementing voice chat in the game, though it won't be coming in the Burning Crusade. Dungeons (though whether all dungeons, or simply expansion dungeons) will have a "normal" and "hard" difficulty setting, and loot will be adjusted accordingly. They're currently anticipating new races with every expansion - though there is a finite limit on the number of races in Azeroth. I can't help but be excited about this news.
Caverns of Time Preview
The entrance to the Caverns of Time has long existed in-game, nestled in the Tanaris desert and guarded by several rather unfriendly members of the bronze dragonflight. However, in the Burning Crusade, players will, for the first time, be able to venture inside the caverns and aid the bronze flight in its mission to safeguard the past. Inside, players will be able to help with Trall's escape from Durnholde keep, participate in the Battle of Mount Hyjal, and witness the original opening of the Dark Portal by Medivh. There's still a lot we don't know about this upcoming dungeon - level requirement? number of players needed? - but it already sounds exciting.
Burning Crusade Release Date?
While we regularly get tips on the supposed release date of the game - no, we still don't know for certain. Amazon.com says October 15th, Best Buy says November 9th, and EB Games & GameStop both say November 28th. Why the conflicting dates? Well, Blizzard hasn't announced an official date, and it's harder to sell pre-orders without some release date - so all of these retailers are guessing in the dark. However, that doesn't mean one of them couldn't be right - Blizzard has said that they're aiming for a Q4 2006 release, which doesn't rule out much of the ongoing speculation. (Though the date could always slip, you know...)
Breakfast Topic: What Will You Play in the Burning Crusade?
For quite a while, I'd been planning to create a Blood Elf warrior when the expansion came out. Something about these fragile-looking elves being heavily armored warriors amused the heck out of me. However, with yesterday's announcement of official classes available to the two new races, this apparently won't be possible. Now, I'll probably end up rolling a paladin - with their access to plate armor, it will be the closest thing to the warrior of my dreams. And now that the classes are finalized, what are you going to be doing on the expansion's release date? Leveling your existing characters up to 70 immediately, or jumping into one of the new races?
Blood Elf and Draenei Classes Revealed
While there have been unofficial announcements on the classes that would be available to each of these new races, it's only today that we've gotten official word on what each race will be able to play. So, with the release of the Burning Crusade, new Draenei players will be able to choose from warrior, paladin, hunter, priest, shaman, and mage options, while new Blood Elves will be able to pick from paladin, hunter, rogue, priest, mage, and warlock. The biggest surprise here is that Blood Elves won't be able to be warriors - a surprise since the preliminary information on the subject suggested that they would. CM Eyonix tells us that they simply wanted an equal number of classes available to the Draenei and the Blood Elves, so one class had to be cut - and the class that made the most sense was warrior.
Alliance/Horde Ratio Over Time
PlayOn has some interesting data on the ratio of Alliance to Horde players on different server types over the course of about six months. The numbers are surprisingly stable over time, with PvP samples being close on 1-to-1 and PvE samples being nearer 2-to-1. However, this data only makes me more curious as to what the numbers will look like after the Burning Crusade is released, when shamans and paladins are available to both factions.
PvP in the Burning Crusade?
By now, I imagine everyone's aware that the Burning Crusade expansion will allow players (who have purchased the expansion) to level up to 70. However, what this will mean for the game's PvP system remains a bit vague. At present, a level 60 player receives more honor than a lower level player for kills. If the existing system is simply stretched out to level 70, then players at level 60 (who do not own the expansion) will find themselves at a detriment if attempting to compete in the PvP honor rankings. To me, at least, this implies that those players without the expansion won't have hope of keeping up with those who do own it - despite the fact that all will be able to play together on the same servers.
Draenei: Paladins and Shamans?
When the Draenei race was initially announced, a Blizzard poster said that, tentatively, Draenei could be warriors, priests, mages, hunters, and paladins. With the more recent announcement that Draenei would be able to become shamans, many (myself included) wondered if they would still be able to be paladins. However, Tseric recently confirmed that Draenei will still be able to play paladins - which seems fair, as it would leave the Alliance with three paladin races and the Horde with three shaman races. Lore-wise it seems somewhat murky territory - weren't the Draenei supposedly a shamanistic society before their integration into the Burning Crusade, when it was revealed that they were introduced to the Light? I was never much of a loremaster myself, so the changes that seem to be getting made to the history of Azeroth continue to baffle me...
Breakfast Topic: Fixing Faction Imbalance
Blizzard's announcement yesterday that the Horde would have access to paladins and the Alliance would have access to shaman has been getting mixed responses on the forums. Some seem to find this the most equitable solution to faction imbalances - now each side will have access to the same classes and abilities. Others, however, think that with this change there will be no longer be any defining difference between the Horde and the Alliance, and that you may well flip a coin to decide which to play. For myself, I remain undecided - and am adopting a wait-and-see approach to watch how Blizzard plans to run with this change.While this is one way to address the continued concerns of Horde players with regards to PvE imbalance, but it certainly wasn't the only way they may have gone about improving the situation. And so, readers, if left to your hands, how would you have addressed the issue? Is there another way to help bring a bit more PvP power to the Alliance and a bit more PvE power to the Horde, while maintaining their sense of uniqueness?
Alliance Shamans? Horde Paladins?
While previously Blizzard posters had announced an unsurprising list of classes available for the new Draenei and Blood Elf races, but now there appears to have been a change of plan. However, Gamespot is currently reporting that in the Burning Crusade expansion, Draenei will have the option to play as Shamans while Blood Elves will have the option to play as Paladins. While I initially wondered if this was merely wishful thinking, CM Eyonix has posted on the official forums confirming it. This rather changes the argument of faction imbalance and "easy mode" favoritism - and, while it may remove some of the unique flavor of each faction, it may be a good solution for overall game balance.[Thanks, Silvertusk]
Burning Crusade Update: Nether Drakes
The Burning Crusade site has been updated with further information on the flying mounts that may be found in the Outlands. Lore-wise these creatures are the offspring of the black dragon Deathwing, who traveled through the Dark Portal to Draenor, believing it to be a safe haven for some of his eggs. When Ner'zhul opened multiple portals on Draenor with the intent of invading foreign lands, the magical energies released tore the planet apart - and altered the eggs, causing the resulting creatures to have the ability to shift between the physical and astral planes. In use, a Nether Drake will have the speed of an epic mount and be able to run on the ground as well as fly through the air. How they may be obtained or what they might cost, however, remains a mystery!
All About Jewelcrafting
Blizzard has released some new information about the jewelcrafting profession that we'll be seeing in the Burning Crusade expansion. Jewelcrafters will be able to make jewelry, trinkets, and insert gems into socketed items - imbuing them with additional powers. Raw gems may be used by the jewelcrafter to create jewelry and trinkets, or they may be cut into gems suitable for use in socketed items (cut gems may be inserted into socketed items by any player). Interesting, to me, is the article's mention of how jewels are found:By processing the raw ore mined from the various deposits and mineral veins, jewelcrafters can extract gems from the ore which they can then use for their craft. Although miners sometimes find gems while gathering ore, jewelcrafters mostly rely on their prospecting skills to get more of the precious stones.Does this imply that jewelcrafting will be a natural match with mining for a supply of gems? Or that there will be a new "prospecting" profession for gathering gems? While we have a lot of new details, much is still unclear.
Burning Crusade Updates
There are several new tidbits of information regarding the Burning Crusade today. The bestiary and screenshots sections have both been updated with some new images, as well as official word on the racial abilities for the Draenei and Blood Elves (though they may still be tweaked in the future). Keep reading for the official racial abilities.
Breakfast Topic: New Races
As we all know, the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion will include two new races - the Blood Elves and the Draenei. For me, the thought of a new race to try out has reinvigorated interest in the game. After having played around with nearly every class and race combination at least a little, the thought of something new is exciting, and I'm already planning out what I'd like to play. Is everyone else equally eager to have a chance to play with the new races, or is there something else you're looking forward to seeing in the expansion?
Draenei Lore Update
There's a new post up by Chris Metzen that makes an attempt at explaining the interesting quandary of the new Draenei lore. It's a fairly long post, so I'll summarize... The change in the Eredar/Sargeras encounter was an accident, caused by not reviewing the older lore. Sometimes you need to be a bit flexible with the world's history in order to "broaden the scope and accessibility of your setting." They're going to run with the story as it currently is on the Burning Crusade site. They feel it's a stronger story and have already started to build around it. However, there's a lot more in the post and I highly suggest checking it out if you have the time.
