Newslist For MMOValue

So the convention is over, Blizzard has shown all (or at least most — there are still secrets, we’re sure) of their cards, and the next expansion will involve the return of Deathwing and a completely remade Azeroth. Goblins will be in there as the Horde race, but as for the original speculation of the Maelstrom and the Emerald Dream, well… It remains to be seen exactly how those will tie in to what we heard about at BlizzCon.

The biggest hint I saw at the Emerald Dream in the last year was the fact that Blizzard is going to release a “Stormrage” novel — that would hint that good old Malfurion Stormrage and his kin would be spotlighted in the near future. Richard Knaak says the novel is set in the present, so something is going on for sure. Even though Deathwing is going to be the big bad this time around, something’s still cooking with Stormrage.

Which actually makes sense. If we’re going to get looks at Deepholm (the elemental plane of Earth, where Deathwing has been lying dormant recently) and The Firelands, as well as Skywall and the Abyssal Maw (the Fire, Air, and Water planes, respectively), that could mean they’re going to open up Azeroth’s other planes as well, with the Emerald Dream among them. The return of Deathwing would undoubtedly bring the other Aspects to bear, and Ysera would definitely be among those. In the opening ceremony last weekend, Metzen dismissed the Emerald Dream as “rumors and speculation,” but the upcoming Stormrage novel still hints we still might see the Emerald Dream sometime soon.

Castres World of Warcraft Blizzard, blizzcon, Cataclysm, Odds and ends

So BlizzCon is over for another year and the road to Cataclysm stretches out in front of us. In Azeroth, things continue as they always do. Wednesday, as every WoW player in Europe knows, is maintenance day and Blizzard have just announced their plans. Tomorrow will see scheduled maintenance, meaning all European realms will be offline from 3:00am until 11:00am (CEST). On top of that, a selection of realms will be getting extended maintenance to hopefully fix that annoying instance-launching problem.

Aerie Peak, Anachronos, Boulderfist, Chamber of Aspects, Eonar, Frostmane, Grim Batol, Jaedenar, Kazzak, Kilrogg, Outland, Ravenholdt, Saurfang, Tarren Mill, Vek’nilash and Wildhammer will all be offline from 1:00am to 3:00pm (CEST) on Wednesday, and also from 3:00am to 7:00am on Thursday 27th August. The sheer length of this maintenance means that hopefully Blizzard might be close to cracking it, so hang on in there, okay?

Catelet World of Warcraft wow-europe

This year’s World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Finals had an extremely good attendance despite some hiccups on the tournament stage, leaving the hosts cracking space-filling jokes until the teams were finally ready. Actually, this happened between every match, which was one of the few dampers in an otherwise decent tournament. The strong attendance at the Finals might also have something to do with the presence of a US/Canadian team, TSG, consisting of David Kovacs, Bennett Lynch, and Fabian Siffredi, otherwise known as Valrath, Veex, and Zilea, who ran a strong Death Knight, Warrior, Holy Paladin cleave comp all the way to a $75,000 purse. The last team to stand in their way was Shipit from Korea, consisting of Soonjae “Coilmaster” Cha, Jaemin “Tsukiyomi” Lee, and Janghwan “Kamiu” Bae with a Warrior, Hunter, Holy Paladin comp that never really posed a challenge for the new World Champions.

All throughout the Finals, TSG played extremely aggressively, bringing Shipit’s Hunter, Tsukiyomi, to dangerously low health within the opening moments of every match. The Koreans faced an uphill battle coming from the consolation bracket, needing to defeat TSG twice in a best of five, but it was clear that the North American team’s aggressive style and double melee comp were too much to handle.

The Korean contingent walked away with a respectable $30,000 and third place team x6tence from Europe took home $15,000. The awards were handed out by Blizzard’s Tom Chilton, who described this year’s Arena Tournament as “the best ever”. We also saw the defeat of RMP — as even Mage hero Orangemarmalade couldn’t advance within the consolation bracket. It reaffirmed the power of Holy Paladin heals and Death Knights, however, in an environment that saw zero Shamans. It’ll be exciting to see what 2010 holds as Cataclysm is likely to change the entire face of World of Warcraft PvP.

Castro World of Warcraft Arena, blizzcon

Well, BlizzCon is over and done with, and what a crazy two days it’s been! The official announcement of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, new races, stat changes, new raids and dungeons, new progression paths, guild leveling, the beautiful Tricia Helfer as Kerrigan in StarCraft II, the Diablo 3 Monk class … my brain is positively swimming in new stuff. There was something for everyone here, except maybe those hoping for new info about the next-gen MMO.

So, I asked you guys a few days ago what announcement you were waiting for at BlizzCon. Some of you got your wishes, looks like! What was your favorite announcement made at BlizzCon? Anything got your blood pumping? Some special phrase into a microphone that warmed the cockles of your heart? Don’t be shy. We all fell a little in love this year. Let the world know, and be at peace.

Castille World of Warcraft blizzcon, Cataclysm

Chris Metzen, speaking during the World of Warcraft preview panel, revealed that Cataclysm will introduce seven new zones, on top of revamping the old world. This revamp changes both the game mechanics (adding the ability to fly anywhere) and the lore, as old zones are forever changed, both geographically and territorially. These new zones are:

Gilneas
Twilight Highlands
Deepholm
The Lost Isles
Sunken City of Vashj’ir
Mount Hyjal
Uldum
Read more…

Catalans World of Warcraft wow-convention

In an interview over at Slashdot, J. Allen Brack, Lead Producer of WoW, spoke about the Battle.net conversion that’s going on and how it will apply to WoW. One of the more important things he said was:

We have optional Battle.net conversion right now, but that will be mandatory at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Many people have done the conversion already, and many speculated and inferred from past Blizzard comments that the conversion would eventually become mandatory. But now it looks like it’s going to be, and that date is in the “not-too-distant future.”

The conversion process is relatively straight forward, and can be started by visiting your account management page. There have been times when Battle.net enabled accounts were not able to get into the game due to authentication issues, but those seem to be diminishing.

We’ll be sure to keep you updated on any additional announcements concerning the upcoming mandatory conversion

Catelet World of Warcraft blizzcon, Realm Status

Cory Stockton and Scott Mercer gave an in-depth look into the dungeons and raids available at the launch of WoW: Cataclysm during the Raids and Dungeons panel today at BlizzCon. We’ll look at the dungeons first.

OVERVIEW:

At launch, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will ship with eight 5-man dungeons and two heroic versions of old-world dungeons.

Grim Batol: One level 85 5-man.
Skywall: One level 80-82 5-man.
Abyssal Maw: Two 5-mans; level 80-83 and level 82-84.
Deepholm: One level 80-83 5-man.
Uldum: Two 5-mans; level 83-84 and level 85.
Blackrock Caverns: One level 85 5-man.
Shadowfang Keep: One level 85 heroic 5-man.
The Deadmines: One level 85 heroic 5-man.

Koeningsmark World of Warcraft blizzcon, Cataclysm

Straight from the press disc comes the concept art from World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. We also have plenty of pictures we got off the floor. Check out those Goblin and Worgen drawings. Great stuff!

Catalans World of Warcraft blizzcon, Cataclysm

Trial of the Champion, the latest dungeon, has quickly become a popular daily destination. It’s no wonder why; in under half an hour, with little difficulty, you can begin outfitting your character(s) with epics of Ulduar quality!

At first, I wasn’t sure if I agreed with Blizzard’s decision to start handing out welfare epics again. Surely we can’t be that close to the next expansion, Cataclysm!

Then I realized how easily I could now gear one of my alts, which was something previously impossible to me. Being a main healer, I knew I would never have the opportunity to bring an alt to a raid, so my favorites have not even hit 80 yet. Now that I know I could get them Ulduar-ready in such a short time, I have renewed interest in leveling them.

I can also see why Blizzard would want to help players gear up at this point in time. In Burning Crusade, so few people got to see Sunwell and experience what the expansion was all about, that this time around, they seem to be gunning for the general raiding population to reach Arthas (Icecrown Citadel).

Having accepted this acceleration in “progress,” I was left with one major qualm.

The introduction to Trial of the Champion, which must be endured each run, is way too long. Unbearably long. Go and make a triple-decker sandwich long.

Then a few guildmates and I discovered that there is indeed a way to hasten the process.

While the other members of your party are finishing up their battleground, taking a bio break, and insisting on making that sandwich, all it takes is for one member to get there early.

Walk in, start up the introduction, and saunter back out. Go raid the fridge or make some coffee. Start piling random objects on your cat.

When your whole group finally arrives, the enemy will be lined up neatly waiting for you. They will sit quietly while you mount your steeds, buff up, and talk strategy. Feel free to proceed as normal; you’ll be able to pull each group at a time, and nothing about the dungeon will be amiss.

Catherine World of Warcraft trial-of-the-champion

So, I’m sure at this point, the majority of you (the readers) are expecting the next WoW expansion to be announced during the BlizzCon opening ceremonies tomorrow. It’s a pretty safe bet! And we’re actually pretty sure it’s gonna be playable, too. Here’s why.

If you check out the BlizzCon map to which we linked earlier in the week, you’ll see that there’s a demo area set up on the right side of the convention center labeled “World of Warcraft”. Unless they’re having us play the Icecrown raid (probably not!) or open PvP, it’s likely that this area is for playing the tidbits they’ll have available of the new expansion. Playable starting zones for the new races, perhaps? A high-level zone or two? We’ll just have to wait and see.

We’ll have the WoW.com staff all up in that place, so we’ll get you up-to-the-minute info on what they see and hear at those stations!

MMOvalue MMOValue news blizzcon

We’re spending our day traveling to BlizzCon, so we figured while we were still in the air, we’d let you in on a little trade industry secret: what we’re bringing to the show. The gallery below offers you a look at just what it takes to turn out the kind of BlizzCon coverage we’ll be bringing you this weekend — the tech, the gear, and the, er, beverages.

We’re just hoping security lets us through with all of this stuff. Especially Alex — oh sure, the hammer’s fine, but that JCVD-endorsed caffeinated gum is the kind of thing that will get you pulled out of line. If he’s not there in time for the meetup tonight, you’ll know why.

Castres World of Warcraft blizzcon-2009

Once again, our friend Boubouille over at MMO Champion has been a busy boy. With the surprise announcement that the PTRs were up for the testing of the WoW Anniversary Patch (aka patch 3.2.2), he’s been digging deep into the patch files and guess what he found?

Well the big news is aptly summed up in the image above. Yes, it’s the Onyxia mount (though not actually the Broodmother herself). A picture really does say a thousand words, doesn’t it? However that’s not all he’s found by datamining. There are yet more mounts, including a Spectral Tiger cub! I suspect this little cub may well be from a future TCG expansion. After all, where did this little guy’s parent come from? Ditto the rather awesome Tuskarr kite.

On top of that there are some regular mounts in the form of a Little White Stallion and yet another dino-centric mount, this time a Little Ivory Raptor. Boubouille also found the Onyxia Whelping, which is the pet everyone who logs in during November will recieve (think the Blizzard Bear). Ain’t it a cutie?

However the oddest thing he uncovered was a collection of Mohawk themed spells. These relate to the now memorable TV advert in which Mr. T creates his own class, the infamous Night Elf Mohawk. From the spell descriptions, I can’t help thinking this is not some hint towards a new class in the next expansion but, rather, will be some kind of NPC or quest-related summonable pet. Either way, it sounds awesome.

dreadmage World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King

When the news first broke yesterday about Onyxia returning to her status as a raid boss, I, probably like many of you, went into lore-generation overdrive. She’s dead in the comic (Varian Wrynn decided her head didn’t so much belong with her body any more), so how was she going to be a raid boss? I stabbed at ideas: she’s in the Caverns of Time! Arthas could resurrect her as a Frostwyrm of some kind!

Fortunately, cooler lore-heads (Ziebart and Sacco) prevailed: they pointed out to me this comment by Maxim in the original post: “Zero lore. Maximum fun. HOORAY!” That perfectly sums up why Blizzard is doing this: there’s no lore reason or explanation behind it, it’s just a straight up fun thing for us to do to celebrate the five-year anniversary. Bornakk makes it official: Ony is still dead, and she’s not coming back. This is a one-time thing on the 5th anniversary.

While, unfortunately, that may destroy some dreams about seeing similar old-world content come back to life (at least until the 10th anniversary, when we’ll probably see Molten Core updated for the level 100 15-man raiding scheme — drool), it means that there’s no thinking involved about why Onyxia’s back. She’s back, we get to raid the original raid and pick up some great loot while doing it. Zero lore. Maximum fun.

Castille World of Warcraft Lore, NPCs

Wow, okay, we didn’t see that coming, at least not this fast. European Blue Wryxian announced this morning on the official forums that the PTRs are back up for testing patch 3.2.2. Character copy is up for both pre-mades and your own characters (the wait time is currently an hour but this is definitely going to change). There are four realms being offered, two PvP and two PvE: Remulos, Brill, Fordring and Naralex. So far, the PTRs seem limited to EU-only but we’re sure America can’t be far behind. We’ll update you with more as we have more but in the meantime, if you have a European account, click here to download the client and copy over a character.

WoW.com is currently hopping onto the PTR as quickly as we can to find anything and everything we can, so keep an eye on the site.

Update: Patch notes are in the process of going up. We’ll have them over here on WoW.com as well as soon as we’re able.

Catalans World of Warcraft Events, News items

No, what you see above is not the logo of the (probably) upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. It’s the graphic being used by a phishing site that’s been making the rounds lately and we’ve received a number of emails about. To make sure everybody is completely clear, if you see the logo above, the website you’re visiting is absolutely not legit. There are no Cataclysm Alpha invites going out to the public, and certainly not Beta invites. When Blizzard kicks off a beta, we’ll be sure to tell you. And even better, Blizzard will be sure to tell you. Until that happens, please be careful about what you click on. The pre-expansion period is prime time for phishing attempts.
Naturally, even if that’s not the graphic you see, you should be wary of Cataclysm-related phishing sites. There are quite a few right now, and they will even grow more numerous after BlizzCon. Be mindful of the sites you’re linked, be careful where you enter your WoW account information, as well as your personal information. I know we’ve said it many times before, but we really can’t say it enough. Don’t do anything silly, and if you want to be absolutely sure that you don’t do anything silly, grab yourself an authenticator if you can. If you can’t get the physical authenticator, there’s always one of the mobile authenticators.

Castres World of Warcraft Account Security, Cataclysm