Newslist For MMOValue

Beginning Wednesday, April 7 we will begin releasing class previews containing an overview of some of the changes currently being planned for each of the 10 World of Warcraft classes. The type of information you can expect from these posts are a list of the new spells from 80-85, the new passive mastery bonuses for all talent trees, a brief outline of some of the talent changes we’re currently planning, and in some cases new low level spells for select classes.

These changes will by no means be comprehensive, and are subject to change between now and the launch of the expansion. It’s also important to understand that some classes are currently further along in the development process than others, and as a result the amount of information will vary from class to class. Please do not let this frustrate you should your class be amongst those which are on the “lighter” side of things, as all classes will receive the same level of design attention before the expansion is released. Additionally we’ll be providing more information for all classes, especially as we move into the beta phase.

Below is the schedule for each class:

Shaman – April 7
Priest – April 7
Warlock – April 7

Warrior – April 8
Death Knight – April 8
Rogue – April 8

Hunter – April 9
Druid – April 9
Mage – April 9

Paladin – April 16*

These posts are being coordinated internationally so they’ll be posted at different times throughout the day and night on the given dates to give players around the world the ability to see posts made at a convenient time. This thread will be updated with links directly to each class preview as they’re posted.

*The paladin is still deep in development. Instead of giving a preview that would be potentially less comprehensive than the other classes we made the decision to post it when it’s ready, in order to properly honor the paladin class and those that play them. The wait isn’t too long however as we’re expecting to be able to post it on April 16.

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We are very happy to announce that Choose My Adventure is returning to WoW.com. Previously, Alex Ziebart leveled Turpen according to the whims of readers. This time around, we have added even more reader participation and interaction:
We will have many adventurers: Many of the staff will be having readers choose their adventures. We’ll offer weekly polls and have you decide how we’ll level that week. It came from the Blog will be our home: Our characters will all be Horde and are being created and played on Zangarmarsh (U.S.). We will post our play schedules: You will be able to join us on our adventures, as we will post the times we will be playing. You may have seen Shawn Schuster do this over on our sister site, Massively. More will be joining us, but we will begin with the following adventurers:

Adam Holisky: Adammentat, a Tauren Druid with aspirations toward tanking.

Michael Gray: Grayfield, a very sociable Tauren Hunter.

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If you play on EU servers, not only are you probably far more handsome and personable than I am (to be fair, so is just about every other human being in existence) but you now have more options as to what servers you can play on. Wryxian posted a list of realms and free character moves available. There will be Alliance and Horde only transfers off of various realms not only to these realms, but to others as well. (It should be noted that Vek’nilash appears to have been open since February, and Boulderfist since March 10th.)

The full text of the post will be included after the jump.

Wryxian – 17/03 Realms & Free Character MovesPrevious thread: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12878617896&sid=1

New Player Realms
Normal/PvE: Vek’nilash
PvP: Boulderfist

Free Character Moves (FCM)
The free Character Moves below are available until the end of March 23rd. To use a free Character Move, please login to your Account Management and select Character Move, or click on the following link:

https://www.wow-europe.com/character/character-move.html

Please note: FCMs are opened based on realm population tracking and analysis and not by request. If you’re looking for a specific Character Move (from realm A to realm B), you are in most cases better off using Paid Character Transfer, or you could end up waiting for a very long time. For more information on FCMs, please check our Support FAQ:

http://eu.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=30558

PvE Realms

From: Stormrage
To: Vek’nilash

Alliance only:
From: Runetotem, Silvermoon
To: Vek’nilash, Chamber of Aspects

Horde only:
From: Draenor
To: Vek’nilash, Bronzebeard

PvP Realms

From: Burning Legion, Darksorrow, Grim Batol, Outland, Sylvanas
To: Boulderfist, Laughing Skull

From: Crushridge
To: Hakkar

Alliance only:
From: Auchindoun, Frostmane, Neptulon, Ravencrest
To: Ahn’Qiraj, Al’Akir, Boulderfist, Dragonmaw, Emeriss

Horde only:
From: Al’Akir, Kazzak, Magtheridon, Stormscale
To: Trollbane

RP Realms

From: Argent Dawn
To: Darkmoon Faire, Earthen Ring, Moonglade, Steamwheedle Cartel, The Sha’tar

Castiglione World of Warcraft

Just under a month ago, CCP announced Tyrannis, the next big expansion for EVE Online. Tyrannis centres around the planets of New Eden, which have so far played a purely visual role in the game. The expansion promises to open these planets for exploration and industrialisation, with players scanning for juicy mineral deposits and setting up vast, sprawling industrial networks. An early prototype of the planetary interaction feature has even been put on the EVE test server and players can help develop the expansion by giving their feedback.

CCP typically release two expansions per year and Tyrannis has been roughly slated for this year’s summer expansion. Although the summer expansion can sometimes come as late as July, CCP have just released a new teaser trailer confirming a May 18th release date. This gives the developers just over 8 weeks to get the expansion into shape. This should give the team more time to work on the next expansion, which most are hoping will be Incarna. Skip past the cut to watch the official Tyrannis teaser.

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If you’re curious as to the fate of the WoW TCG, then check out this official statement by Bornakk. While the future of the TCG has been questionable since since Upper Deck had parted ways with Blizzard, that doesn’t mean the TCG is going to end. The upcoming Wrathgate and Icecrown expansions are still on pace for the spring and summer. Realm Championships will still happen this weekend around North America, and all announced prizes will still be awarded (but trophies will not be ready yet).

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Usually when we fall in love with a new MMO, the first thing we do is start telling our friends how great it is. Global Agenda, one of the most recent additions to the MMO market, may be one of those games for you. If you’ve been encouraging your friends to pick it up, Hi-Rez Studios just made the package a lot more attractive.

This weekend only, you can start filling up your shiny new Global Agenda friends list thanks to special discounted pricing. The discount for a single game is pretty generous, but gets even better if you purchase more. It’s a great incentive for several friends to purchase the game together: it’s always better when you can start a new game with friends, and even better if doing so gets you a great deal on the game. You can order it here, and remember, the deal ends March 8th.

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The Patch 3.3.3 PTR patch notes have just been updated to reflect today’s latest PTR build. All of the changes can be found behind the cut below, and we’re also in the process of integrating them into our primary Patch 3.3.3 patch notes post. (Update: All changes are now reflected in our primary patch notes posting.) Some highlights:
Death Knights: Icy Talons: The personal haste benefit provided by this talent is no longer exclusive with other sources of melee haste. This will allow death knights to always swing 4/6/12/16/20% faster when Frost Fever is applied. Windfury Totem and the party/raid component of Improved Icy Talons still do not stack. Hunters: Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%. Engineering: The Pet Bombling and Lil’ Smoky non-combat pets are no longer Bind-on-Pickup. For the full listing of updates, just click through the link below.

Dungeons and Raids
World Event Bosses

Holiday bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. (Note: This section is purely clarification, this change is not new to this PTR build.)

Players must use the Dungeon Finder or speak to special holiday NPCs in the world to queue up and access these bosses. Upon accepting a queue for any holiday boss, the party will be ported directly to the necessary area for confronting that boss. The previous summoning criteria for these bosses have been removed. Players can queue up for and fight each World Event boss as many times as they want for any standard loot that they may drop. All rare holiday items (such as The Horseman’s Reins) will have a chance of being found in holiday-themed loot troves which will drop once for each player in the party no more than once per day, in the same manner that doing the Random Dungeon daily quest will provide a specific reward the first time it is completed in a day. Death Knights
Read more…

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Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related.

Arguably one of the most unique encounters in the entire game, Valithria Dreamwalker is one where the success of the raid rests entirely on the shoulders of healers. After some more practice and attempts, I can pass on several aspects of the fight that I learned onto you.

If you haven’t looked over the basic overview of the encounter, go check it out. This week’s post is designed to purely cover the healing side of things from a defensive and “offensive” stand point.

To start with, your raid group isn’t going to need more than 7 healers. Your DPS and tanks play an important role in keeping the pesky trash mobs that come in off your back side. You can get away with 5 or 6.

Read more…

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Maintenance has been extended until “approximately” 2:59pm EST. In the official post on the forums, Blizzard recommends looking into your account security and making sure that everything is up to date. I agree and to that end, I’ll also link you to the WoW Rookie account security roundup.

We’ll update this post with any changes to the realm status.

Update 8:14pm: All realms are up, theoretically. However, many are having severe latency issues and others can’t get past the character loading screen. Blizzard says they are working on it.
Update 7:21pm: All realms are up, but expect some latency issues.
Update 6:24pm: Some realms are up. They will give us another update on the rest of the realms by 7pm EST. Bored? Come visit It came from the Blog, Zangarmarsh U.S. Horde side. Send a tell to Robiness or any Lurker for a guild invite.
Update 5:10pm: Even more issues have been found and they’ll get back to us at 6pm EST.
Update 4:21pm: They are resolving more issues and have extended maintenance again to 5pm EST.
Update 3:26pm: Maintenance has been extended to 4pm EST.

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For most people, Valentine’s Day either means either buying something nice for your partner if you’re in a relationship, or staring in silent rage at the endless array of heart-shaped candy boxes if you’re single. Unless you’re a player in Final Fantasy XI, in which case it means yet another opportunity to get yourself a heart-shaped wand and possibly fulfill your dream of being a magical girl. The not-so-deceptively named Valentione’s Day is fast approaching yet again, and as per tradition, the official site has put together a short piece of fiction to commemorate and preview the event.

This year seems to hint at a slight twist to the events of prior years — while the charm wand has become strongly associated with the event (since that was how one earned it in the first place), it’s usually the end reward of the process. The small preview story seems to hint that we’ll be called upon to slay more than a few monsters with said wand before everything is said and done… or perhaps it’s just a sweet little vignette. Either way, Final Fantasy XI players will get a chance to find out between February 4th through February 15th.

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We’re less than a week away from the launch of Global Agenda, but Hi-Rez is as anxious to get things going as the fans are. Last night they gave a list of launch activities for the week leading up to the big day, and it looks like it’s going to be a busy few days.

Today is the last day of beta, and the Hi-Rez team will make it interesting by randomly entering certain PvP missions and spawning bots that don’t usually show up there. If you’re interested in a little extra challenge, keep your eyes peeled for these.

Wednesday, you’ll want to keep a close eye on this Twitter feed. Global Agenda is expected to be available for download on Steam by the end of the day, and that’s where you’ll find the announcement. Name reserve begins as well, so take a close look at the instructions on the GA site.

Early start begins Friday the 29th, and the servers will be open for limited content until Sunday afternoon.

And finally, Monday, February first: launch day.

The last few days before launch are typically the ones that find us as players at our most impatient, but in this case, GA fans are likely to be way too busy for that. Check out all the details in the announcement, and have fun!

Castiglione MMOPRG News

It was announced today that there will be a major change to resilience, which is being hotfixed into the game as we approach the new arena season. The change is expected to be in place for the duration of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion; which we take to mean it will not carry over into Cataclysm.

This change will “double the value of resilience in reducing damage done by players,” according to Bornakk. Players will see a 10% to 20% reduction in damage taken. However, this change will not affect critical strike chances or critical strike damage. If healing becomes too over powered with this change, Blizzard has a “PvP only solution” ready to go, however they’re not rolling out that part of the changes just yet.

The full details after the break.

From Bornakk:

We are currently in the process of applying a hotfix to buff resilience. While some modifications may be made, we intend to have this buff in effect for the remainder of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

The change will double the value of resilience in reducing damage done by players. So depending on their current amount of resilience, characters might experience a 10 to 20% decrease in damage taken from other players. The critical strike chance and critical strike damage reduction components of resilience will remain unaffected by this change.

We are also aware of the possibility that this change will make healing in PvP too difficult to counter. While we are not making any immediate changes to address this issue, we have prepared some further changes that will allow us to quickly deploy a PvP-only healing adjustment if we feel it is warranted.

We will be applying this change very soon while we are between Arena seasons so we can evaluate how it works in multiple PvP scenarios for the upcoming Arena season, and as we continue to prepare for Cataclysm. As we have mentioned previously, one of the goals for Cataclysm is to have a PvP environment where it is harder to regularly achieve so much damage and healing in relatively few global cooldowns compared to what we currently have in the game.

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EVE Online players who were fortunate enough to attend Fanfest in 2009 kept raving about a collection of animated video backgrounds that were running on screens during panels and presentations. Players were so taken with these that they’d been pressing CCP Games to make them available for download. CCP delivered on their promise this week, making these sweeping tours of the Gallente, Caldari, Amarr, and Minmatar space station interiors available for download in HD.

Once you see them, you’ll probably understand why the EVE Fanfest attendees have been wanting them ever since. Those are some fairly hefty file sizes though, so for a quick look you can also see all four of the hangars and a nice selection of each race’s ships in HD on YouTube. Stick with us past the jump for a look within an Amarr hangar which shows off the theocratic race’s golden fleet.

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It’s a technical marvel, really, to be able to shoot at 256 people at once. Very few games have been able to get this many players into one enclosed space, and even fewer have been able to do it without having everything lock down in lag. But Zipper Interactive’s MAG is taking the bull by the horns and is following in the footsteps of games like PlanetSide to deliver a true “war” experience to the PS3.

With the impending release of MAG to the shelves of stores everywhere, my editor wanted me to get down to the front lines of combat and find out what the fuss was all about. To that end, I’ve joined up with Shadow Raven Industries to get a taste of the combat that MAG has to offer. Follow after the break, and let’s break down how this “Massive Action Game” plays out.

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Back in June of 2008, we first heard about a neat little idea from SyFy — then the Sci-Fi channel — involving a combination MMO and television show. The project is still going strong as a collaboration between SyFy and Trion World Network, and now has the intriguing working title of One Earth.

One Earth has since received financial backing from Peacock Equity, a global fund from NBC Universal and GE dedicated to investing in digital media companies (among other ventures).

New video — featuring Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion and President of SyFy David Howe — delves deeper into the project. “…we are making this game now with a lot of support from every side,” Buttler says. “we can, in this unique setup, do things that other people would never even dare before: create a video game world, a television show, they’re based on the same universe, they take place at the same location in the future. They not only promote each other, they literally depend on each other and co-evolve.”

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