Adam plays a warrior on Eldre'Thalas, and is currently working on Black Temple with his guild. He has played WoW since the release in 2005, and really enjoys all aspects of the game. When not playing, he can be found blogging, hanging out with his cat Max and girlfriend Katie, and working towards a degree in computer science.
Adam Holisky Fargo, ND - http://www.holisky.com/
Adam plays a warrior on Eldre'Thalas, and is currently working on Black Temple with his guild. He has played WoW since the release in 2005, and really enjoys all aspects of the game. When not playing, he can be found blogging, hanging out with his cat Max and girlfriend Katie, and working towards a degree in computer science.
Wowhead has put up an announcement this afternoon that the beta key contest they were running has been cancelled. The announcement tells us that the distribution of the keys were exploited. Though there is no official word on what exactly the exploitation was, there is some unconfirmed talk about the beta keys being ebayed.
This is most unfortunate for those wishing to participate. Malgayne, the "Voice of Wowhead," does go on to say however that the remaining prizes will be given away using a different method soon. We'll get any more news up on this as soon as it becomes available.
Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan posted several new changes that are appearing in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta tonight. The highlights include:
Level cap raised to 80.
Less XP required for 70 to 80*
Storm Peaks zone available, Icecrown unavailable.
Follow dungeons available:
Halls of Lightning
Halls of Stone
Caverns of Time: Stratholme
The Occulus
Utgarde Pinnacle
Heroic Nexus
Tigole also notes that premade characters will be made available at a later date on a different server. It looks like they'll actually be doing this now. More changes and analysis of the latest Beta patch to come throughout the evening. Stay tuned.
*We did some rough calculations. Daniel's Hunter was approximately 50% of the way through level 70. His hunter is now 60% of the way through level 70. Thus, the XP required to level was reduced by approximately 20%. These are just rough estimates, and no official word on the percentage has came out yet.
Update 11:49 p.m. EDT: Zarhym has said that patch notes are still being compiled. We'll have them up as soon as Blizzard releases them.
Have you ever wondered what the collective sound of every warrior's jaw dropping to the floor is like? Tonight you can experience it first hand by logging into vent and listening to them as they read about the latest changes in the beta.
The highlights:
Heroic leap has moved from Tier 11 to Tier 9. You now can get it at level 50.
Titan's Grip is now a Tier 11, instead of Tier 10.
Titan's Grip is now only 1 rank, and does not have any speed penalty.
Furious Attack – New Tier 8 fury talent. Normal melee attacks have a 50%/100% to reduce healing done to a target by 25% for 8 seconds. Stack up to 2 times.
Shield Mastery in the protection tree increases block value by up to 30%.
These changes are quite simply amazing. A friend of mine found me in vent and began the conversation by screaming about how over powered Titan's Grip is now. At first glance it looks like nearly every fury DPS warrior will be using Titan's Grip, hands down.
More analysis on all this later. Stay tuned. Lots of great changes coming out tonight!
WoW Insider's own Mike Schramm recently talked with Tamara Chuang from the Orange County Register about the trials and tribulations of the recent BlizzCon ticket sales for an article she wrote concerning the debacle. Mike is in some good company, with executive editor of GameSpy.com David Kosak also contributing to the analysis of Blizzard's failure. Yesterday, Mike wrote an in-depth account of the problems we all faced obtaining tickets to the event.
The OC Register article makes a good point noting that some major events, such as the World Series, have had ticketing problems in the past. However, it is also pointed out that other sites such as NBCOlympics.com still stay up even under the pressure of lots of traffic.
With Mike Morhaime's apology late last night, and his offering up 3,000 additional tickets via a lottery, it will be interesting to see what this does to appease the fans in the long run. It is good to see that this issue is getting some wider coverage outside of the game and fan sites. While bad press isn't exactly good, it usually leads to things being better the next time around.
There is a new addition to the login screen for Wrath of the Lich King tonight. A large dragon, which was previously just a white mesh, swipes down from the sky and roars at you as you log in. It is a very cool addition to the otherwise bland login screen.
I was able to capture the video above, and the audio you hear is just as I hear it. I expect there to be a "roar" or something else eventually inserted for the dragon. Nonetheless, it's quite a neat feature. You can also watch a high quality version via YouTube.
The new beta build just came out tonight, so stay tuned for more info and analysis as we get it all collected together.
If you want to go to BlizzCon in October, you have one last window to buy your tickets: 8:00 p.m. PDT tonight. That's 11:00 p.m. Eastern, and 10:00 p.m. Central. This news comes from an announcement on the main page of the WoW website. The announcement further tells us that all the available tickets were sold out within minutes of the Blizzard Store coming on-line this afternoon.
Considering there will be a third hall open this year, we believe around 12,000 tickets have been made available (this number has also been reportedly confirmed by phone sales reps), which is 50% more than the 8,000 that were sold last year. The World Wide Invitational that took place in June also sold out very quickly.
In the case of the WWI, additional tickets were made available after the primary batch had sold out. However, and this is important, there is no indication Blizzard will do this again.
We'll update with any further information when we have it.
The ultimate evil in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is represented by a large eye sitting atop a gigantic tower in a desolate and war torn land. It is one of the most iconic images in not only fantasy literature, but also in recent cinematography. Just about anyone who has paid attention to movies in the past eight years would be able to pick the Eye of Sauron out immediately, and I would have to imagine just about everyone playing WoW would be able to as well.
The Eye of Sauron makes an appearance in Wrath of the Lich King in the Death Knight starting zone. It goes under the name of the Eye of Acherus. In the image at the top of the article you can see the two side-by-side – the Eye of Sauron on the left, and the Eye of Acherus on the right. Arthas himself directs you to control it and use it to gather data from New Avalon, a nearby Scarlet Crusade fortification.
Take a look at the gallery below for images of the quest, what you do during it, and how everything appears.
Gallery: Wrath of the Lich King: The Eye of Acherus
My favorite blue poster in the Customer Service Forums has to be Belfaire. He's always got something smart and funny to say, usually in response to annoying forum trolls and others trying hard to be upset about a game. Besides his witty and crazy remarks, he also likes to drop all of us little bits of information here and there. Such is the case in a post today.
Belfy confirmed that the next round of Beta invites will be sent out "around" Friday, August 1st "and on." This is another chance for more people to get into the beta. With some luck you might be able to run around and explore the wonders of Northrend. All previous waves of invites have included both BlizzCon, WWI, and Opt-In people.
Check your email on the 1st! And check it often! You might just get one. And if you haven't yet, be sure to sign up for the Beta Opt-In.
EDIT: Belfaire has issued a correction: "I need to reiterate there that I'm not confirming an August 1st distribution date. I'm confirming that a wave after August 1st will be the one that incorporates the remaining BlizzCon, WWI, and Dell Beta Club invites."
Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, California were temporarily evacuated today when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck the Chino Hills area in southern California. Chino Hills is about 30 miles from Irvine.
According to the information on the login screen, in-game and phone support were momentarily unavailable, however everything is now back to business as usual. No servers or other game services have been affected by the earthquake. All the technology is operating smoothly.
Our own Dan O'Halloran was in private chat with us all when the earthquake struck. He reported that while it was a good shaking, it was "nothing to go home about." Perhaps if we're lucky the earthquake shook a few more Beta keys out of Blizzard. We can only hope.
Take a look after the break for the full in-game news released by Blizzard.
Elizabeth Harper was able to snap a few screenshots of the new Blacksmithing patterns from the game last night. The items all require at least level 75 and are of superior quality. That's good news for those that are looking to craft gear as they level – which can be a viable alternative to fill in certain missing pieces.
You can browse through all the latest patterns below in our gallery. For a quick analysis however, take the piece that is featured in the right hand image of this article. They're tank legplates that have 1661 armor, 57 strength, 84 stamina, and 55 defense. No sockets or anything else like that. Let's compare it to the T6 warrior legs, which have 24 agility, 78 stamina, a red socket, 40 def, 41 parry, and 32 block value.
Fresh from the new Beta build today: new Death Knight starting screens and our first look at the Death Knight flying mount – a skeletal gryphon! The starting screen pictured above is pretty cool. The Death Knight is standing on a terrace surrounded by Northrend. Neat. Be sure to click on the picture for a hi resolution image.
The gryphon that we're seen, which is pictured after the break, is about the same size as a normal flying gryphon – but a complete skeleton. The actual name of the flying mount item is "The Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade." It is something that I'm really looking forward to picking up now, and I'm pretty sure most of you will be as well.
Lots of great bits of information coming out from this beta patch – stay tuned for more
There's a new Beta build out on the testing servers tonight, numbered at 8681. The patch notes themselves only have two changes from the other patch notes in them. However there are a ton of new glyphs which are going to be useable via inscriptions, and a lot of undocumented patch changes.
The two main changes have to do with the calendar system and the mount / vanity pet interface. You can take a look after the break for the exact text, and also keep an eye out on WoW Insider for the latest on both of these new interfaces.
One interesting thing to note: Elizabeth Harper is reporting that the mount interface isn't working. If you have a mount in your inventory, you cannot successful "train" it into your spell book, which means you can't cast or use it. This means those in the beta can't mount unless they already have their mount as a spell. An interesting tid bit that we'll keep you updated on. Updated July 29th, 2008 at 5:35 p.m. EDT: Elizabeth Harper has reported that the mounts are now fixed in the beta. Mount up!
Elizabeth Harper managed to get onto the latest beta build of Wrath of the Lich Kingtonight and snap us a few screenshots of the new calendar system. It looks quite nice, and to me appears to be a step up from current in game calendar options.
Blizzard has mentioned that they've been working on one of these for a while, and it's nice to see the results. If you look closely you'll see things like when the Darkmoon Faire is coming, and when the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravagenza is happening. It doesn't show what PvP weekend it is, but I have to believe that's something they'll be working on.
Check out the screenshots below for the new UI. I'm sure you'll be happy!
Update 12:57 a.m.: There is a way to add user events in the calendar. It also appears there is a way to share the calender items among individuals. More information incoming.
Between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. PDT today (Sunday July 27th) all U.S. realms will be undergoing a rolling restart. Each realm should be down for about 15 minutes, though these things have a tendency to last longer than scheduled.
The login announcement tells us that the servers are getting a hotfix applied to them, however there is no indication what the hotfix is for.
If anything does happen to extend this restart, you'll see it here on WoW Insider.
Last night we were pursuing a key issue of our own, and all we got was an automated response from the email address pointed to in the Beta invitation. Tonight however, that no longer happens – so it appears as if this email address is being staffed by a live person.
This is great news for those that have issues, including any that might revolve around a WWI '08 EU key not working with a US account. Hopefully Blizzard will respond promptly to all of us that have been emailing this address. If Blizzard or any of the blues release any more statements you'll see them here at WoW Insider.
Wowhead has put up an announcement this afternoon that the beta key contest they were running has been cancelled. The announcement tells us that the distribution of the keys were exploited. Though there is no official word on what exactly the exploitation was, there is some unconfirmed talk about the beta keys being ebayed.
Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan posted several new changes that are appearing in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta tonight. The highlights include:
Have you ever wondered what the collective sound of every warrior's jaw dropping to the floor is like? Tonight you can experience it first hand by logging into vent and listening to them as they read about the latest changes in the beta.
WoW Insider's own Mike Schramm recently talked with Tamara Chuang from the Orange County Register about the trials and tribulations of the recent BlizzCon ticket sales for an article she wrote concerning the debacle. Mike is in some good company, with executive editor of GameSpy.com David Kosak also contributing to the analysis of Blizzard's failure. Yesterday, Mike wrote an in-depth account of the problems we all faced obtaining tickets to the event.
If you want to go to BlizzCon in October, you have one last window to buy your tickets: 8:00 p.m. PDT tonight. That's 11:00 p.m. Eastern, and 10:00 p.m. Central. This news comes from an announcement on the main page of the WoW website. The announcement further tells us that all the available tickets were sold out within minutes of the Blizzard Store coming on-line this afternoon.
Elizabeth Harper was able to snap a few screenshots of the new Blacksmithing patterns from the game last night. The items all require at least level 75 and are of superior quality. That's good news for those that are looking to craft gear as they level – which can be a viable alternative to fill in certain missing pieces.
There's a new Beta build out on the testing servers tonight, numbered at 8681. The patch notes themselves only have two changes from the other patch notes in them. However there are a ton of new glyphs which are going to be useable via inscriptions, and a lot of undocumented patch changes.
Elizabeth Harper managed to get onto the latest beta build of Wrath of the Lich King tonight and snap us a few screenshots of the new calendar system. It looks quite nice, and to me appears to be a step up from current in game calendar options.
Between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. PDT today (Sunday July 27th) all U.S. realms will be undergoing a rolling restart. Each realm should be down for about 15 minutes, though these things have a tendency to last longer than scheduled.
Vrakthris, a Blizzard blue poster over in the Customer Service forums, posted that any people having issues with their Wrath of the Lich King beta key should send them an email to the address contained in the beta email.
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