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World of Warcraft hit by DDoS attack on expansion launch day
There's something about a major launch that brings out all of the cyber griefers, and Warlords of Draenor's launch day is no different. Blizzard confirmed this evening that the game was hit by direct denial of service (DDoS) attacks that have been causing issues, and the studio is taking steps to combat it, including temporarily lowering the maximum populations on servers: We're excited to finally launch Warlords of Draenor and explore this new world with you, but we know that the experience has been less than ideal as we approach our first full day of launch. Europe was our first region to launch, and we encountered a few issues due to the sheer number of players attempting to enter Draenor from a single location. We worked to add multiple new ways to access Draenor, and this helped ease some of the initial rush into the new expansion as players were able to access it from their capital cities, as well as from the shrines in Pandaria. While that solution helped a ton for our North American launch, we ran into a few other issues, including a distributed denial of service attack, that resulted in increased latency. Later this evening, Bashiok updated players on the ongoing server issues as they unfolded over US prime time: We're continuing to work toward greater realm stability and address the service issues impacting latency. Our current biggest hurdle is the concentration of players in specific areas and zones, and an unexpected effect of that concentration on the realm stability. We're continuing to maintain a lowered realm population cap to help with the stability, which is resulting in increased queue times. We're seeing some increase in individual zones drop which are causing localized player disconnections as we get into primetime in the Americas, and if someone is disconnected they will quite likely run into a queue to log back in. Work is progressing on improving realm stability through fixes targeting individual in-game issues, as well as on the backend game and network services.
World of Warcraft's garrisons 'like a personal guild'
Experiencing garrisons in World of Warcraft is no longer an exercise in daydreaming but an immediate reality with this morning's launch of Warlords of Draenor. That doesn't mean that Blizzard is finished with talking about it, as it's shouting a final garrison dev diary today to the crowd that's already streamed out of the front door. This fourth dev diary is mostly concerned with showing how this feature can benefit players and how they can be accomodating to different playstyles. "Your Garrison operates more like a personal guild that you lead," Blizzard posted. "Whether you check in on it multiple times per day or a few times a week, you can set up your Garrison to give you rewards and present you with challenges at varied intervals." Every two levels of the expansion will open up more garrison options, and these instances will also offer weekly quests that tie into the storyline. You can even end up building a monument to your mighty ego if you overcome one of a handful of significant tasks.
You're too late: People are already 100 in WoW
Too bad for those of us stuck working today instead of playing video games: There are already folks at the level cap in World of Warcraft. The Warlords of Draenor expansion launched early this morning amid complaints of lag, queues, and horrifically bottlenecked quests, but that hasn't been enough to stop the truly dedicated. On my home server, which my guildies affectionately refer to as Crashridge, there appear to be no 100s roaming the world yet, but Eurogamer reports that European servers have several dozen apiece thanks to the earlier launch there. The level-capped rushers took advantage of legitimate garrison-related experience bonuses and dailies but also repeatable turn-in quests deemed exploits by Blizzard, which temp-banned and de-leveled at least one Polish player for using them as seen in this colorful video. So much for that world first!
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor launch-day roundup
The fifth expansion to 2004's World of Warcraft MMO is now live. First announced at BlizzCon 2013, Warlords of Draenor opened its doors at 3 a.m. EST this morning, so you would be forgiven for having slept through the start. And what would a launch day be without rolling restarts, giant patch notes, and overloaded, bottlenecked entry zones? Wheee! In honor of the launch, we've rounded up the best WoW and Draenor stories from the past year for your perusal during today's inevitable downtimes. Who's playin'?
World of Warcraft vows faster expansion development
Many Azerothian eyes are fixed on tomorrow's release of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, but what happens after that? Will players face a severe content drought as they just did while they wait for expansion #6? Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas said that the team is pushing to increase the pace of expansion development: "Our goal is certainly to release expansions a little faster than we have been... we've increased the size of our team, and we feel like we're in a place where we should be able to move faster than before." He also fielded the eternal question of a hypothetical World of Warcraft 2, saying that the team would need "a different vision" and mechanics that allowed for new types of gameplay. To help with your Warlords of Draenor countdown, Blizzard put out a few expansion-themed posters as well as an Age of Iron trailer that you can watch after the break!
Watch the unboxing of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor's CE
Tomorrow is the launch day for World of Warcraft's fifth expansion, Warlords of Draenor. It's quite possible that you already have your collector's edition pre-ordered and ready to go, and you can't wait to open it up and see what's inside. So wouldn't you like to watch someone else open it up and see what's inside before you get to do that yourself? Michele Morrow (who also helped host the official coverage of BlizzCon 2014 this past weekend) has posted an unboxing video for the Warlords of Draenor collector's edition, going over the various bits and gewgaws located within the box. Sure, you've known about what's in the box for a while, but here's your chance to see it before you get it. If you can't wait until tomorrow to peek inside, jump on past the break to see the video.
Global Chat: Why we blog
Why an MMO player decides that he or she needs to take up an additional hobby of writing about these games isn't much of a mystery. We may all blog about a huge variety of topics, but the impetus behind it tends to be very common: We have so many thoughts about and so much love for these games that we can't hold it in. To blog is to open up and share experiences, observations, and hopes. It's to connect with others and to perhaps give another layer of meaning to the time that we spend in-game. We don't blog because we have to; we blog because we simply could not not blog. So let's see a few examples of what MMO bloggers couldn't keep inside of them! From spooky stories to rapturous tales of exploration, it's a testament to the power of words and goofy rejoinders.
BlizzCon 2014: Art gallery celebrates Blizzard's past and present
The Blizzard art gallery on display at BlizzCon is always worth a visit for convention-goers, but this year's gallery was a special treat highlighting the history and development of Warcraft and World of Warcraft. If you were looking for a trip down memory lane, this was the place to be: along with early concept art and design documents, a monitor cycled through screenshots of WoW's past, including an early image of WoW running on the Warcraft III engine, the first Molten Core raid and the first Blackwing Lair raid (the which goes about as well as you'd expect). After the opening ceremony announced Overwatch, an empty part of the gallery filled with Overwatch concept art and attracted most of the attention away from Warcraft's past... but it was fun to venture back into Blizzard's past before heading into Blizzard's future. For more art, check out the full gallery below.
WoW's Iron Horde declares war on Times Square
Finally! Here's the Blizzard we know and love. Why promote a World of Warcraft expansion with a pat press release and gory trailer when you can beat up an actual taxi in Times Square with a 15-foot replica of the epic Gorehowl axe? And that's exactly what Blizz did this morning to bemuse passing New Yorkers. Surveil the carnage in the gallery below. WoW's Warlords of Draenor expansion launches this Thursday. Holla if you know of an Etsy shop where we can buy some #WARLORDS crime scene tape; that has to be a thing someone makes, right?
Watch the full World of Warcraft: Looking for Group documentary
You might have missed the "other" Warcraft movie reveal at BlizzCon this past week, but we're here to make sure that you don't let it slip by completely. Blizzard premiered a special World of Warcraft documentary at the convention called Looking for Group, and you can watch the flick in its entirety right now. Looking for Group examines the phenomenon of the MMO's creation and operation over the past 10-plus years. According to the studio, the documetary will allow you to "explore the history of WoW with its creators, and journey into corners of Blizzard and the WoW community you've never seen before." Grab your Michael Jackson comment popcorn and watch it after the break!
Joystiq Weekly: Free Radical's Haze, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Tony Hawk and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. Yes okay, BlizzCon 2014 was full of announcements. A new team-based shooter called Overwatch, a Hearthstone expansion, Warcraft movie details, the next StarCraft 2 expansion ... Blizzard fans have plenty to look forward to. Thanks to an unexpected announcement however, Tony Hawk fans also have something to look forward to (or dread, depending on cynicism) in the form of a 2015 console game. Sure, the Skate series was a cool take on realistic tricks, but we wouldn't mind getting back to the outlandish challenges, yellow-text specials and SKATE letters of the original killer skateboarding series. If you've never enjoyed injury-supplementing planks of wood with wheels, there's still plenty of good stuff from this week. News of Grand Theft Auto 5's first person mode, reviews for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Lords of the Fallen, a feature exploring the development of the unfortunate PS3-exclusive Haze, and more is all waiting for you after the break!
WoW Archivist: The zombie plague event
WoW Archivist is a biweekly column by WoW Insider's Scott Andrews, who explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? It first appeared on our sister site on November 5th and is included here by permission. We have one more week of the Iron Horde invasion event before we can take the fight through the portal to Draenor. Most players seem to think this event is serviceable, if unexciting. Like all such events, it lives in the shadow of the most memorable pre-expansion event in WoW's long history: the zombie plague. It debuted almost exactly six years ago, and Blizzard has never topped it. If you need evidence, just look at the comments on the previous WoW Archivist about patch 3.0. I only mentioned the event in passing as a topic for a future column. Even so, readers posted more about the plague event than about any of the other 3.0 features like achievements, glyphs, or pally nerfs.
Heroes of the Storm getting new characters, maps, beta in January
Blizzard's MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, continues to evolve and change. During the opening ceremony for BlizzCon 2014, company president and CEO Mike Morhaime introduced a new trailer for the game which revealed characters Jaina, Thrall and the Lost Vikings, as well as two new maps: Sky Temple and Tomb of the Spider Queen. If you want to just skip all these fancy letters and words, that trailer is waiting after the break. Warcraft series fans will recognize Jaina and Thrall, representatives of the Alliance and Horde factions, respectively. Both characters' appearances seem based on earlier versions of themselves rather than their current visage, as Thrall is once more clad in his Warcraft 3 armor, while Jaina lacks the distinct white hair she gained in the latest World of Warcraft expansion. The Lost Vikings, meanwhile, are from an old SNES game called ... well, The Lost Vikings. Thrall will act as a melee fighter, Jaina a glass-cannon mage, and the Vikings as a trio of individually-controlled characters. The game's new maps feature Egyptian-inspired themes, with one set above ground (Sky Temple) and one set in the catacombs below (Tomb of the Spider Queen). Sky Temple encourages players to capture control points which will in turn cause heavy damage to enemies and their base, while Tomb of the Spider Queen rewards players for stealing minion souls by summoning strong monster allies. If you're anxious to try these additions out for yourself but aren't part of the alpha currently underway, you may not have to wait much longer: Heroes of the Storm will move to closed beta starting January 13, 2015.
Who's playing who, what orcs look like in the Warcraft movie
The cast list and associated characters for the upcoming Warcraft film from Legendary Pictures has been revealed by director Duncan Jones and Blizzard SVP of Story and Franchise Development, Chris Metzen. As part of a BlizzCon 2014 panel, the two men - joined by cast and crew from the film - discussed who would be wearing whose set of armor. Those revealed include: Travis Fimmel as Anduin Lothar (Alliance) Dominic Cooper as King Llane Wrynn (Alliance) Ben Foster as Medivh (Alliance) Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar (Alliance) Ruth Negga as Lady Taria (Alliance) Paula Patton as Garona (Alliance/Horde) Toby Kebbel as Durotan (Horde) Rob Kazinsky as Orgrim (Horde) Clancy Brown as Blackhand (Horde) Daniel Wu as Gul'Dan (Horde) Filming wrapped on Warcraft earlier this year, but there's still plenty of post-production work to be done before the film's March 2016 release. Legendary and Blizzard are aiming to keep excitement high however, and fans can now follow news updates via FightForTheHorde.com and FightForTheAlliance.com. Legendary also released two promo shots of heroes King Llane and Orgrim, which you can check out after the break:
The BlizzCon line has already been started by one dedicated player
BlizzCon 2014 starts tomorrow, and if you're already in California for the event, you've got a whole day of ambling about ahead of you. You might think there's no reason to even think about the lines or the waiting that will come around tomorrow. But you'd be wrong: There is already a line to get into the convention that starts tomorrow, a line started by one dedicated fan waiting patiently at the front gate. Massively's sister site WoW Insider reports that the fan is Brendan "Tibs" Thibodeau, a Navy veteran who has been playing World of Warcraft since 2005 and has racked up 29 level-capped characters with five legendary cloaks among them. Tibs has attended six BlizzCons and been at the front of the line for four of those, due in no small part to the dedication necessary to get in line a day before most people even think about queueing up. At last update, however, the second spot in line is still available. BlizzCon returns to Anaheim during the weekend of November 7th and 8th, 2014! Whether you're anticipating World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor expansion or the latest news from Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm, we aim to have it covered!
Blizzard updates WoW's garrison game guide
Blizzard has updated its game guide to World of Warcraft's garrisons. In case you missed it, garrisons serve as your Draenor ops center and allow you to collect resources, send followers on missions, and "create wondrous items to aid you in your journey," the firm says. You've still got a few days before Warlords of Draenor releases on November 13th, so why not give the new guide a look-see?
Activision Blizzard earnings bolstered by Destiny and World of Warcraft
Another financial quarter is fading into memory, and that means it's time for another earnings call for Activision. The financials tell a fairly bright story for this particular quarter, with the continued sales of Destiny, overall success of Hearthstone, and the subscriber bump for World of Warcraft pushing the company up in revenue compared to the same quarter last year. Destiny, Activision says, has now racked up 9.5 million registered users. As a result of these figures, the company has increased its overall earnings forecast by two percent, with the upcoming phone releases for Hearthstone, a new Call of Duty title, and the Warlords of Draenor release accounting for the increased profits. You can read the whole thing yourself if you want to take a closer look at the company's financial workings.
BlizzCon kicks off on Friday, virtual tickets still available
If you've been waiting patiently for the next big convention focused entirely around Blizzard's game catalogue, your wait is almost over. BlizzCon 2014 kicks off on Friday, November 7th, with the opening ceremonies starting at 2:00 p.m. EST. There's no chance of attending in person if you don't already have a ticket, but you can still pick up a virtual ticket, and DirecTV customers can also grab a pay-per-view stream that includes a virtual ticket and the associated benefits. The convention will host a variety of tournaments, including the Hearthstone championships, the StarCraft II championships, and the World of Warcraft Arena championship. There will also be the usual assortment of lore panels, development previews, and reveals for the various games under the Blizzard banner, included the much-anticipated Warlords of Draenor expansion. If you've been on the fence about getting a stream, take a look at the list of festivities and get ready to see what's coming from the studio this weekend.
One Shots: Jolly pumpkins
Halloween may be over, but its spirit remains alive in MMOs! Alive, that is, as long as there are spooky locales to explore and a population that's more than willing to dress up in costume and face down the terrors that slip between the shadows. Our friend David here may be taking Halloween at face value in World of Warcraft, but can you really blame him? He and his demonic minion look to be having a heck of a time. Plus, there's a whole-hearted embrace of a pumpkin motif that will be all but extict come December. Enjoy it while it lasts! The rest of this week's player-submitted screenshots may not be creepy in the least, but they do all share the same jolly attitude that exists in this moment. In a world that brought back One Shots, really anything is possible!
WoW level designers discuss Draenor's callbacks and vignettes
Blizzard's final Artcraft blog for World of Warcraft has arrived today in the form of an interview conducted by Community Manager Bashiok. Once again, the topic is the design of Nagrand, a zone made iconic in The Burning Crusade expansion and returning in Warlords of Draenor next month. The five interviewees, all level designers, discuss preserving key landmarks and environments in the proto-zone and how they've incorporated appropriate callbacks for classic content. The popular Ring of Blood arena quests will return, for example, as might everyone's favorite escort quest NPC, Corki. "Vignettes" will sound familiar to fans of more modern MMOs, as well; Senior Level Designer Victor Chong explains: We've added a lot more vignette stuff, and I was working with Kurt Sparkuhl, a quest designer, on how I could add hidden stuff on the tops of mountains. So we have a lot of vignettes where players have to figure out how to get up there without just being able to walk up. It's stuff like doing some jumping around to get into an area, and then when you get to the top, you find a goblin with a glider that'll let you glide to specific areas that aren't normally accessible. Then if you get through all of that and land on a specific spot, you're rewarded with whatever the prize is there from a chest or something. We're doing a lot of that, and Nagrand was a good test bed for those kinds of things. The complete interview is available on the WoW official site.
