wow-europe
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Patch 2.4 on the EU and US servers [Updated]
Many thanks to reader fLUx for sending me over to the European WoW site, which as usual, has better info than its U.S. counterpart. The service announcement reads "Weekly Maintenance - 26/03. This Wednesday there will be an extended maintenance to apply patch 2.4.0. Please note that all European realms will be offline from 03:00 until 11:00, Paris time (CET)." March 26th over in Europe is March 25th here in the States.All we're waiting for is the U.S. version of this announcement, which will soon come. After that the final patch notes will drop, which we'll have mirrored here for you as fast as we can get them up. As the posts below this one indicate, down time started about 30 minutes ago and is expect to last until at least 11 a.m. PDT.Happy patch 2.4 day! WoW Insider will be updating frequently, stay tuned.Updated 7:06 a.m. EDT: Belfaire has responded again on one of those "is 2.4 today?" threads: "Enjoy the new patch, folks!" This serves as confirmation for the U.S. realms. And you have a tag this time Belfaire. ;-)
Valentine's Day fun from the official EU site
WoW-Europe.com offers up some Valentines Day fun today, showing off the winners of their Valentine's Day art contest, as well as offering a free Valentine's Day e-card to send to your sweetie. Interestingly enough, a lot of the winners seem to have had Murlocs on their minds. Not exactly the most romantic Warcraft race that I can think of, personally. Well, I suppose a bouquet of Murloc Heads to a sweetie who's been killed by them one too many times could technically be a pretty romantic gesture. You know, in a "I will crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and let you hear the lamentation of their womenfolk" way. Do Murlocs even have womenfolk? I suppose they must, considering how many of them there are. Anyway, check them out, and have a happy Valentine's Day!
World of Warcraft to invade Russia
World of Warcraft is literally taking over the world one country at a time. It turns out Blizzard Entertainment, the Vivendi money-maker see great potential in the Russian market and will be translating and localizing World of Warcraft there next. This will be the sixth official World of Warcraft port to another language that supports official localization. Other localizations include: English, Spanish, French, German, and Korean. I think the next localization should be Barrens chat. Blizzard could build their own country out of money and call it the Barrens, and all the players that don't read quests and like Chuck Norris jokes can live and play WoW there. Translating and localizing the behemoth that is World of Warcraft is no easy undertaking, and Blizzard Europe is looking for new employees based out of their France and Ireland offices. Take your pick of in-game support, offline technical and customer support, localization and quality assurance, community relations and website development. Players will benefit from the same quality of 24/7 native-language support like the other localizations. For further information please see the Blizzard UK employment page. For those in Russia already playing WoW, Blizzard will release language packs to make the transition much more smoothly when the time comes. Which country has the best official World of Warcraft site? If I could actually read and completely load the WoW Korean website I could give you my input. What I can see does look flashy. [via, WoW Insider]
Scammers are betting you don't know a "vv" from a "w"
Scammers never stop trying, do they? They're always out there coming up with new and interesting ways to part players from their World of Warcraft accounts. Most recently, a European scam has set itself up by registering the domain www.vvovv-europe.com (currently, it's just redirecting to the main page), as opposed to the genuine EU site, www.wow-europe.com. (It shouldn't surprise us, then, that there's also a www.vvorldofvvarcraft.com -- but it hasn't been spotting using its domain for e-mail scams.) That's right, they've replaced the w in the authentic domain with a pair of v's. And while the difference is painfully obvious on a site like WoW Insider that uses a serif-style font, most browsers use a sans-serif style for their address bar in which the two v's look almost exactly like a w. (They're a bit wider than a normal w, but it's not a difference you're likely to notice at a glance.) So be extra careful of incoming e-mails that might try to convince you an e-mail from vvovv-europe is the real thing -- and remember, Blizzard will never ask you for your password! [Thanks, Jon]
Nihilum recruiting: females need not apply [Updated]
Top EU guild Nihilum is recruiting a few serious Horde raiders on Magtheridon (EU). And not that I play on the EU side of things, but if I did, I wouldn't be welcome to apply. Why? According to GM Kungen, there are a lot of reasons they don't recruit females, but the one he highlights is the need for recruits to have a "high 'abuse tolerance.'" And a bit later in the thread, poster Awake adds that female applicants are avoided because of drama. And while I know there are immature girl gamers who can bring plenty of drama to a guild, I know equally immature guys who can be just as bad. So to me, personally, it makes better sense to simply not recruit idiots of either sex.However, in discussion over at wow_ladies, zeolla points out that a girl in the middle of a group of boys can sometimes cause problems without doing anything:Insert a girl and Guy A and Guy B have a crush on her. They end up bickering, which annoys the other guys who may like her and so forth. A girl gamer can just be in the middle of a conflict like this without doing ANYTHING. Usually in this situation if she says she's not interested, she becomes a 'slut' and lots of fighting occurs.So perhaps for a group so completely focused on a single goal (end-game raid success) having uniform member base just makes it easier for everyone to get along with as little fuss as possible -- and focus completely on the guild's purpose of bleeding-edge PvE domination.Update: There's been a lot of interesting commentary on this post, some of which I'd like to highlight here.Zuuler: "Throw them [girls] into a social environment with a bunch of geeky boys who would normally be afraid to talk to a girl directly and you have problems erupting. I think the same could be said if a predominantly female guild had a few males in it, the exact same problem would occur." I'd like to hear about any all-female guilds out there...!Deathlike: "It's not a misogynistic ideal for Nihilum to be a guys-only guild; in fact, it's exactly like most sports: there's women's hockey and men's hockey." In line with Zuuler's comments, this may be accurate. Just that the all-female guilds in the game aren't as obvious -- because they aren't competing in content on the level of Nihilum.Duromiir: "...if the GM has trouble with immature players on this level, I'm not sure why he hasn't /gkicked the worst of them to set an example and kept on only the good players who are also good people. I *can't* imagine that they have any shortage of applicants." This is an excellent point, though with a guild specifically trying to achieve world firsts, I wonder if there's time to deal with any level of potential "drama" and remain competitive with the other major guilds. Time is crucial when trying to score "firsts" and an evening of raiding lost because a key player /gquit could be the difference between making headlines and getting an unnoticed "world second."
Armor sets page updated
I don't know about you, but I've been waiting for Blizzard to update their armor set page since the expansion was released. After all, it's nice to have an easy point of reference for set stats and appearances, but Blizzard's page has been stuck in a drab pre-BC format, without including new races or new sets. However, for those who simply must know, you can now find updated armor set information (including where to find each set) on Blizzard's European site -- though the US site is still a bit out of date.Update: Blizzard's US site picked up these updates on Monday, the 19th.[Via Warcry Network]
Happy second anniversary, WoW Europe!
Shane Dabiri is a bit wordy about it -- talking about the arena system opening up on the 16th, the future opening of the Black Temple where players will encounter Illidan, and the growth of the European community -- I think his basic message can be summed up as follows:Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday WoW Europeeee... Happy birthday to you!And I think that's a sentiment we can all agree with. Congrats, Europe, for making it through two WoW-filled years. Try not to have too much fun celebrating your big day.
Free transfers open for select EU realms
Today free transfers closed for several EU realms and opened for several more EU realms. Today's transfers are planned to remain open until next Wednesday, the 14th, but the transfer list can be changed at any time, so if you want to take advantage of this, better sooner than later. Currently, players on Grim Batol, Outland, and Warsong may transfer off to Spinebreaker. Want to get started? Read the transfer FAQ first (remember -- this is a one-way trip!) and then head over to the character transfer page.
Blizzard on WoW's success
Greg over at the Guardian Gamesblog has been chatting with Itzik Ben Bassat, VP of Business Development for Blizzard, about WoW's success in Europe and worldwide. He hints at possible console versions:Consoles will become increasingly important to the online world and obviously as a leading company in the online world we would like to use the great tools that the 360 and PS3 offer to bring Blizzard quality to console owners. There is nothing confirmed yet though.Also, more hints on future development:At the moment we are not announcing anything but we have several projects concerning the three worlds (Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft) that we will announce when we feel comfortable that they match the quality of our previous games.Intriguing stuff.[Fanart by Ralf van der Hoeven of Holland.]
