12th May has 23 articles
Showing only News articles
Showing only News articles
Shaman Hotfix, Blue posts, Wallpaper
1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 7 hours ago) [Source]
MMO-Champion wrote on 12th May 10pm
Lightning Overload buff hotfixQuote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)We are concerned that Elemental shaman dps is a little low in patch 3.1. We are going to hotfix an improved chance for the Lightning Overload talent to cast the half-damage Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning. This hotfix should go in sometime over the next couple of days. The talent currently has a 7 / 13 / 20% chance to proc. The new change will be an 11 / 22 / 33% chance to proc.
We think this will provide a roughly 5% dps increase for say the raid-buffed level 80 Elemental shaman, but we will closely monitor the damage being done after this change. Note that the tooltip of the talent will not change from this hotfix the talent will proc 33% of the time with 3 ranks, even though the tooltip says 20%. We will get the tooltip updated in a future client patch.
Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staffBlizzard's new MMO
We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it's a shell of a game thus far. We've already stated it'll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It's an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this. (Source)
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 7 hours ago) [Source]
Allison Robert wrote on 12th May 11pm
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, we plagiarize from Stephen Hawking, jack a WABAC Machine, and begin a joyride through the evolution of the Druid class.Dear Blizzard,
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 9 hours ago) [Source]
Michael Sacco wrote on 12th May 8pm
This is pretty cool news for the type of people who like to watch really, really good players have it out, replete with commentary. I visited the site today and found that there was not only a ton of archived games to watch, but there was a bunch of live games going on too. You can filter the videos and live channels by the game or game type, too, in case you hate watching Starcraft players practice their uber micro but just love Sentinels on Scourge action.
I imagine the chances are pretty good that we'll see Starcraft 2 added to the list of games available for viewing once it's launched, too, as well as future titles that make their way to Battle.net.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 11 hours ago) [Source]
Mike Schramm wrote on 12th May 7pm
Double Bubble has a good little writeup on a pretty useful WoW-related iPhone application. But instead of the MMO, this app centers on another game in the WoW universe: the Trading Card Game. WoW Lifecounter (iTunes link) is a utility that will (you guessed it) count your life points as you play the TCG -- it tracks both sides' heroes, and you can take away or give life points with just the touch of a button. It's pretty simple -- all you do is punch in the starting health of each character, and then the app will even track wins for each side. Usually, you can just track the points with a pen and paper, but if you don't want to bother doing math in the heat of a battle, the app can be fun to use.[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]
1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 11 hours ago) [Source]
Adam Holisky wrote on 12th May 6pm
We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.
There's really no reason that the above photo needed to be included in today's Daily Quest, other than the sheer awesomeness that was SNL last weekend.
- Honor's Code has a good story about how that little extra push helped down Vezax. A good read for those working on him, or thinking about working on him.
- Twisted Nether Blogcast is having a t-shirt design contest for their trip to BlizzCon. Win a 60-day game card!
- Too Many Annas asks: are your problems healer caused?
- Does your mother play a Shaman? If so, she will love Lodur's Restoration Shaman - Best in Slot for Patch 3.1.
- Shields Up! takes a look at the loot council distribution method.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 11 hours ago) [Source]
Mike Schramm wrote on 12th May 6pm
Danielle "Shyka" Brown is back again, and making custom art badges of your character to put in your BlizzCon lanyard. We covered her last year before the convention, and so if you're headed to BlizzCon and want to put a little custom memento of what your character looks like, now's the time to order them. She's starting a little earlier, so they're a bit cheaper, only $30 per badge, but any orders after June 16th will go up to $40 because presumably she'll be in crunch time. The good news is that since the last set of BlizzCon ticket sales are on May 30th, you should know for sure by then whether you're going or not.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 13 hours ago) [Source]
Amanda Dean wrote on 12th May 4pm
Kyleface of Garona started a thread in the tank forums on Tank Haiku. It seemed that some of the responders prefered to write Haikus abut how they don't like Haikus:Nancee of Dark Iron submitted a Haiku on Death Knights:
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 13 hours ago) [Source]
Eliah Hecht wrote on 12th May 4pm
The affected realms are: Aegwynn, Akama, Aman'Thul, Arathor, Azjol-Nerub, Barthilas, Blackrock, Bloodscalp, Bonechewer, Boulderfist, Bronzebeard, Caelestrasz, Chromaggus, Crushridge, Daggerspine, Darkspear, Dath'Remar, Draenor, Dragonblight, Dragonmaw, Draka, Drak'thul, Dreadmaul, Dunemaul, Eitrigg, Eldre'Thalas, Feathermoon, Firetree, Frostmane, Frostmourne, Frostwolf, Garithos, Gundrak, Gurubashi, Hakkar, Jubei'Thos, Khaz Modan, Khaz'goroth, Kil'jaeden, Kilrogg, Korgath, Kul Tiras, Malorne, Mug'thol, Muradin, Nagrand, Nathrezim, Ner'zhul, Perenolde, Proudmoore, Rexxar, Runetotem, Saurfang, Scarlet Crusade, Sen'jin, Shadow Council, Shadowsong, Silver Hand, Silvermoon, Skywall, Smolderthorn, Spirestone, Stonemaul, Stormscale, Suramar, Terenas, Thaurissan, Thorium Brotherhood, Tichondrius, Uldum, Vek'nilash, and Windrunner. All other realms should be available for play now.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 13 hours ago) [Source]
Mike Schramm wrote on 12th May 4pm
To no one's surprise, Blizzard has confirmed that yes, Grunty, the Space Marine Murloc we posted about yesterday, will be given away in the BlizzCon goody bag to all attendees. Anyone who also orders the DirecTV pay-per-view package this year will also pick up the noncombat pet as an in-game item. So if you want to get your hands on this little well-armed gurgler, get those F5 buttons and your Battle.net accounts ready: tickets go on sale May 16th.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 13 hours ago) [Source]
Lesley Smith wrote on 12th May 5pm
Rumours are abounding from the Australian arm of Kotaku (and our own Joystiq) that PopCap's CEO Greg Canessa is joining Blizzard. Given the success of their WoW addons for Peggle and (my personal favourite) Bejweled, the hiring of the man who helped launch Xbox Live Arcade is quite exciting. [View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 13 hours ago) [Source]
Alex Ziebart wrote on 12th May 5pm
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.We're going to jump right in today, because we have plenty to talk about this time around!
NarwhalFrenzy asked...
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 15 hours ago) [Source]
jederus wrote on 12th May 2pm
Last night Blizzard announced that they will be changing the quest format for Wintergrasp PVP quests from a daily to a weekly quest system in an effort to better control lag in the zone. Presumably, the aim is to disincentivize players from participating in the battle regularly and thus reduce the amount of lag generated overall. The disappointing aspect of this change, in our opinion, is the significantly lower profit potential for participation. Previously, Wintergrasp was a fantastic use of time in that it offered high-end farming of herbs and ore (and, most recently, even fish) while providing significant gains in honor, honorable kills, and gold and shards. At this point it looks like the new weekly quests will reward the following:
- 1/7th the amount of gold as the current daily version (same amount of gold for weekly as for daily)
- Less than ½ the amount of honor (equivalent to 3 days of the old quest)
- Less than ½ the amount of shards (equivalent to roughly 4 days of the old daily quests)
MMO Champion posted photos of the new quest rewards should you wish to research further.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 15 hours ago) [Source]
Nick Whelan wrote on 12th May 2pm
Welcome Warlocks! This week, Nick is taking a break from your regularly scheduled Blood Pact to bring you a 71-80 leveling guide! About time, eh?
Wrath of the Lich King brought us Northrend, Naxxramas, and of course, ten more levels of DoTing, Rain of Firing, Shadow Bolting Warlockery. So saddle up your Dreadsteed, and float or fly your way to the frozen north--crown of the world. It's time to get diabolic. And this time, it's personal.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 15 hours ago) [Source]
Eliah Hecht wrote on 12th May 3pm
According to progression site GuildOx, the Alliance guild We Know Girls on Arygos-US has earned the world-first Champion of Ulduar achievement. This achievement is awarded for completing each 10-man boss fight (except Alagon) with no raid members dying during that boss fight. It's the Ulduar version of The Undying, but unlike Undying, it doesn't have to be done all at once - if I down Flame Leviathan with no deaths and then wipe on XT-002, I still get achievement credit for the Flamey kill.
Update: As pointed out below, VoS on the Sargeras realm and Bastion of Uldaman got the achievement May 9th, last Saturday, which means We Know Girls was not the world-first (and incidentally, casts some doubt on the reliability of GuildOx for things like this). Grats to VoS and Bastion. Anyone know of any earlier than May 9?
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 15 hours ago) [Source]
Lisa Poisso wrote on 12th May 3pm
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.
Last week, we went behind the scenes with Boubouille of MMO-Champion to learn more about the non-stop pace of bringing readers a never-ending stream of fresh news tips and datamined tidbits. Serious stuff – and readers expressed some serious appreciation for his efforts.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 17 hours ago) [Source]
Lesley Smith wrote on 12th May 1pm
Last week, we told you all about the giant chicken known as El Pollo Grande (now reincarnated as a mount). His presence was revealed thanks to a little datamining by MMO Champion's Boubouille. This giant chicken is set to be the new, rarer than hen's teeth, mount in the next set of loot cards in the TCG expansion Field of Heroes. Indeed a spokesperson at Upper Deck recently called this card 'the new spectral tiger' and it's got an awful lot of fans excited.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 17 hours ago) [Source]
Michael Gray wrote on 12th May 1pm
In honor of today's featured movie, I was going to write this entire post in haiku. It's possible, but I don't think it would have been convincing or effective. Still, I wanted you to know it was on my mind. You can share a little "ha ha" with me at our little untold joke.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 17 hours ago) [Source]
Shawn Schuster wrote on 12th May 12pm
Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all MMOs, including WoW! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.
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Games Day '09 coverage This last Saturday was Games Workshop's Games Day celebration, and Massively.com was on site to get you the latest Warhammer Online coverage straight from Mythic Entertainment. Want to know more about Ultima Online's Stygian Abyss expansion? Curious about Land of the Dead? Interested as to the future direction of Warhammer Online? Do your favorite devs play on order or destruction? Find all of these answers and more in our full coverage of the event starting tomorrow, including our hands-on impressions of the new mega-dungeon, Land of the Dead! |
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An overview of Warhammer Online's Land of the Dead You've heard us talk about it, you've heard us discuss it, and it's now time for us to tell you exactly what it's all about. Land of the Dead is not your father's MMO dungeon -- it's a dungeon that is something more than just a dungeon. It's an entire zone filled with activities and sub-dungeons, all culminating in an epic instanced dungeon that features a face off with the first leader of the Tomb Kings himself, King Amenemhetum. |
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Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 52: Answering your Champions Online questions Massively Speaking Episode 52 returns this week with Shawn and Contributing Editor Kyle Horner to answer your questions about Champions Online's recent NDA lift for press. Kyle gathered questions from a recent The Daily Grind post and answers a handful on the podcast. |
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Richard Garriott blasts NCsoft with $24 million lawsuit When Tabula Rasa shut down in January, we thought we'd heard the last of NCsoft and Richard Garriott in the same sentence. Oh, how wrong we were. Yesterday, Kotaku broke the news that Garriott was suing his old pals at NCsoft to the tune of $24 million for fraud, and generally being a bunch of fetid arsebiscuits. Details were decidedly skimpy, however - why would Garriott go after the company so long after his departure? What had gone rotten in the state of Denmark? |
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Mortal Online presentation puts all you want to know in one place As an introduction, here is what the Mortal Online team says their game is not: "There are no levels, no experience points, no starting classes, no quests, no 3rd person view, no NPCs with big exclamation marks over their heads, no global chat channels, no flashing numbers when you hit something, no respawning bosses, no instances, no pocketable mounts, no virtual restrictions for where you can go or not, no auto-loot, no predestined player path where it turns out you're The Chosen One, no automated auction house, no auto-respawn, no NPCs you "can't attack", no bears that drop gold coins or dragons that drop swords, and no loot bags impossible for other players to open." I think they've made their point. |
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Trion to reveal first MMO at E3: Heroes of Telara One of the newer industry players in the MMO world is Trion World Network, which first came to our attention nearly a year ago with word of an MMO being made in partnership with the Sci-Fi Channel (soon to be rebranded as "Syfy"). Since then we've learned that there are multiple titles and publishing deals in the works at Trion. |
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Champions Online has no server shards Nearly every MMO on the market has them: server shards. Whether they're named after game characters or places they all present the same problem -- limiting a player's options. Whenever a new MMO comes out, friends must discuss and agree upon which server to choose and it's not always the smoothest discussion. Enter Champions Online, who is going the way of Guild Wars: No servers, but instead a large list of all the current instances of the particular zone you're attempting to enter. |
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Second Life pwns Gordon Freeman, Warhammer Online, others Wagner James Au at New World Notes is carrying some surprising data from ratings giant, Nielsen Media Research. From actual measurements of usage across over 180,000 homes in the USA, Linden Lab's Second Life (paradoxically measured under the 'PC games' category) rates the number two most played title, just behind World of Warcraft. |
1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 19 hours ago) [Source]
Adam Holisky wrote on 12th May 10am
WoW Insider and Curse have teamed up and are giving away a year of Curse's premium service! Twenty (20) lucky people who leave a comment in this post before 12:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday May 14th will be randomly selected to have their Curse account upgraded to the premium version for one year (if you don't have a regular account you can create one for free now).[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]
1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 19 hours ago) [Source]
Elizabeth Wachowski wrote on 12th May 11am
After a random disconnect in Alterac Valley, Kyutir of <Reforged> on Cenarius found that his character had undergone a startling transformation on relogging. "I was something else entirely," he wrote. "Something more evil. Something even the GMs only whisper about at night! I turned into a Shadowform Paladin! I stayed this way throughout the entire length of the Alterac Valley, letting the foolish Horde bask in the corruption transfixed before them." This is actually a pretty common graphics bug, particularly with older video cards, so no need to demand a nerf to shadoretpaladins.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 272 days 23 hours ago) [Source]
Daniel Whitcomb wrote on 12th May 6am
So the Holiday Rush is finally over, with both Children's Week and Noblegarden out of the way, it's a bit quieter in Azeroth. In fact, some of us are starting to think they may be a problem: It's just too damn quiet. Northrend just doesn't have that much ambiance after a while.
Still, even if the landscape of Northrend is starting to look somewhat sterile, there's still buzzing going on in the background, at least. Patch 3.1.2 remains on the PTR and even has some updated notes, There's a Murloc Marine on the loose, the first round of tickets for BlizzCon will be released in scant days, and we have a plethora of interesting pets and mounts showing up in the game files. Downtime today is 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific, and some servers will be down even longer, so you'll have plenty time to read up on all this and more. Curl up in your WoW Pod and check our usual tuesday morning roundup after the break.
Hot News and Features
- The New Star Trek movie (which is amazing, awesome, and sweet as hell) is out, and in celebration, we have a list of some of the various Star Trek references you'll find in game.
- We recently got a chance to sit down with Tom Chilton to discuss patch 3.1 and beyond.
- New Battlebot pets have shown up in the game files. Could they be related to the new Mountain Dew?
- Confused over the BlizzCon ticketing system? See if this FAQ helps.
- Not only do WoW Armory apps continue to drop like flies, but Blizzard has apparently moved in on WoW fan comics as well. Are their lawyers just super frisky lately, or is there more going on?
- The Blizzard Cinematic team recently spoke at Chapman University, where they had some choice words about Gnomes, among other things.
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 273 days 3 hours ago) [Source]
jederus wrote on 12th May 1am
After our post analyzing the state of the post-3.1 economy we had a few readers ask us about Titansteel Bars and, more specifically, how to get rid of them. Obviously, dumping more than 2 or 3 in the market at once will send prices downwards but, as we pointed out in our the post, prices are already on a steady decline so holding on to the bars seems equally fruitless. What should we do then, if the goal is to get out of the Titansteel Bar market as painlessly as possible?
Understand Fair Value
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1 posts (Updated 2 years 273 days 5 hours ago) [Source]
MMO-Champion wrote on 11th May 11pm
Wintergrasp Quests now Weekly
Don't worry, Wintergrasp isn't really getting nerfed, the quest rewards are being changed to fit the new frequency. (Yes, you actually get 20 Stone Keeper Shard for a single quest now)
Quote from: Crygil (Source)In an effort to better balance the amount of players that are in Wintergrasp at any given time, we are changing the daily quests in Wintergrasp to a weekly format. This has led to an increase in the honor reward given by these quests as well as additional Stone Keeper's Shards. These quests will reset every Tuesday morning at 3:00 AM.
There are two known issues that may occur once these changes are pushed to live realms:
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Don't worry, Wintergrasp isn't really getting nerfed, the quest rewards are being changed to fit the new frequency. (Yes, you actually get 20 Stone Keeper Shard for a single quest now)
Quote from: Crygil (Source)In an effort to better balance the amount of players that are in Wintergrasp at any given time, we are changing the daily quests in Wintergrasp to a weekly format. This has led to an increase in the honor reward given by these quests as well as additional Stone Keeper's Shards. These quests will reset every Tuesday morning at 3:00 AM.
There are two known issues that may occur once these changes are pushed to live realms:
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