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Our last poll featuring "favorite battleground" ended up with Alterec Valley as the undisputed winner despite months of exploits and cheating. The results of that poll can be viewed here.
This week's poll is "Favorite In-Game Holiday". Whether you prefer the drunken stupor that is Brewfest or you're the romantic type that looks forward to when love is in the air, you'd best be heading on over to WoW Vault's front page to vote!
Latest from Blizzard regarding their Voice Chat Sweepstakes...
To celebrate the launch of the World of Warcraft Voice Chat feature, we are giving away 40 Logitech Digital Precision PC Gaming headsets for each week for five weeks total. Each week's winners are randomly selected from among players who have been World of Warcraft subscribers for a minimum length of time
Here is the next honorable mention comic submitted by Kxhara. Remember, the comic contest will go on all year long, so don't miss your chance to win a J!NX gift certificate with an approximate retail value of $100! Keep those comics coming! You can submit a new comic each month. Check out the rest of the comics submitted for October, 2007 and browse older comics via the links at the top or bottom of the page.
In preparation for the expansion, patch 2.3 will include a reduction in the time it takes to level up a character to at least 60. Part of these changes includes a rework of the old world instances. Bornakk once again gave us a little more information about these changes.
With the changes in patch 2.3, players won�t have to put off Razorfen Kraul, Blackfathom Deep, The Stockade, or Gnomeregan for later levels as they will be able to go through them throughout their 20s and roll into their 30's where Scarlet Monastery, Razorfen Downs, and Uldaman await to take people into the 40's and so on. Blackrock Depths is getting improved as well. I recommend checking it out the PTRs when they are available for patch 2.3.
Don't forget all the hard work from the Steamwheedle Cartel in Dustwallow Marsh which will give a big boost for the level 30 range too!
Immunities to disarm are going to be removed in patch 2.3 and replaced with a 50% chance to avoid disarm. On top of that, it looks like disarm will suffer from diminishing returns in PvP.
We're also making sure that Disarm will suffer diminishing returns in PvP now. I'm sure some warriors will think that's a good thing and some a bad thing.
For those that do not know, diminishing returns reduces the duration of the move in question by half if applied to the target within 15 seconds after it previously wore off. The full post can be read here.
Looks like a tooltip bug from the PTR has people worried about the upcoming broom mounts from the Hallow's End event. Drysc had the following to say on the subject:
We do have the broom mounts for Hallow's End this year. Some people got to see them on the PTRs, they're pretty wicked. The tooltip on them is wrong however, they are not one use only, they do have a 14 day duration though.
I highly recommend checking out the additions when it begins in your nearest "starter" town, the Headless Horseman attacks and ultimate battle with him in Scarlet Monastery graveyard are a lot of fun, easily puggable at 70, and he drops phat purples.
Keydar is back with another edition of DL Comics. This issue features a sneak peak at the upcoming engineering mount scheduled for patch 2.3. View it here.
Patch 2.3 brings a lot of new content and features to the World of Warcraft. One of these is the highly anticipated increase in leveling speed for players pre-60. Blizzard Europe's Vaneras took a few moments to share with us some of those changes.
The first notable change was to simply reduce the amount of experience needed each level by approximately 15% between levels 20 and 60. Experience gained for completing quests (on average) between levels 30 and 60 is being increased. We've also added approximately 60 new quests in Dustwallow Marsh. We're making other improvements to pre-bc leveling dungeons that players will likely find most agreeable. We also want to make running a leveling up dungeon more worth while. In addition to increasing quest experience for dungeon quests, we're also upgrading all pre-bc dungeon boss drops to blue quality items.
Here is the next honorable mention comic submitted by Ailu. Remember, the comic contest will go on all year long, so don't miss your chance to win a J!NX gift certificate with an approximate retail value of $100! Keep those comics coming! You can submit a new comic each month. Check out the rest of the comics submitted for October, 2007 and browse older comics via the links at the top or bottom of the page.
Bornakk once again drops another hint at upcoming fury warrior changes for 2.3.
Not a lot is finalized right now, but we are currently planning to make Improved Berserker Stance provide threat reduction by 2/4/6/8/10% while in Berserker Stance.
Bornakk answered one forum poster's question about new armor sets either in Season 3 or within the two raid dungeons scheduled before the expansion specifically for Feral druids.
We are currently planning to make a Feral-focused set available in season 3. The idea is to make this set have no plus to healing on it and be focused on Feral statistics. We are still finalizing details on PvP and PvE items, so a lot of things can still change and I don't know about new Druid specific tanking gear yet.
On a related note, for items that grant attack power in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms, in general we are planning to increase the amount of attack power they give.
Korean online games giant NCsoft today officially took the wraps off its latest studio acquisition, Carbine Studios. The Aliso Viejo, California-based studio was originally formed back in 2005 by ten former members of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft core development team. According to NCsoft, the team is now up to 17 former Blizzard employees.
The Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth is renewing its competition in celebration of Halloween. In a longstanding Blizzard tradition, this year we are proud to announce our fifth annual pumpkin-carving contest.
Between 12:00 a.m. PDT on October 5 and 12:00 a.m. PDT on October 29, the RPSA will be accepting submissions for the World of Warcraft Pumpkin Contest. The shutterbugs who submit the most outstanding photos of their work will have their pictures proudly displayed on WorldofWarcraft.com and Blizzard.com on Halloween. In addition, the ten most interesting, original, and well-carved pumpkin designs will be recognized for their merits with a Logitech 51 Surround Sound Speaker System designed specifically for gamers. Special thanks go out to Logitech for these prizes!
If you want to view some past pumpkin-carving contest winners, you can see them here: [2003], [2004], [2005], [2006]. Check out the contest page for additional details, including the official rules and submission form. Good luck!
The following improvements to Alterec Valley can be found in the next patch.
Strategy can be an important element of any battleground. We want to emphasize this in Alterac Valley more and give players additional meaning to both defending and attacking. To push the strategic element of the battleground to the next level we have changed how players maintain their reinforcements or deprive the other team of theirs.
Each team will have a starting reinforcement count. Reinforcements can be lost in significant amounts if a tower is destroyed or if Captain Galvangar or Belinda Stonehearth is killed. For each team member death, an additional reinforcement will be lost. On the death of General Drek'Thar or Vanndar Stormpike, all reinforcements are lost and the team is defeated. At any point in time, if a team is reduced to zero reinforcements, the opposing team will win the battle. Defending your own teammates, towers, and key NPCs will be an important aspect of maintaining team resources and achieving victory in Alterac Valley.
Warmasters can be the boon or the bane of any team. They are an important element for the defense of your general or the defeat of the opposing general. Warlords and their general will be more closely linked in the next patch. Pulling one is a guarantee the other will come as well. Each team begins with four Warmasters. Destroying a tower will eliminate the associated Warmaster. Unlike the current game play, however, destroying the enemy tower will not add a Warmaster to your own side.
We will be changing the pace of the battle slightly with a reduction in the time needed to control a tower or graveyard. Where it currently takes five minutes to gain control, the time will be reduced to four minutes. The honor for capturing a tower will also be increased.
Graveyards can be an important resource for getting your teammates back into the battle more quickly. Currently, players can sometimes be sent to their starting tunnels far from the battlefront. This can often be an inconvenient location to respawn and more out of the way from the action than we would like, to correct this, players will instead respawn at a team-controlled graveyard. Should the team not have a graveyard under their control, they will respawn in the starting tunnel.
Players will only be awarded bonus honor during the battle for destroying enemy towers and slaying the enemy Captain. Once the battle is concluded, bonus honor will be awarded for intact towers, a surviving Captain, and for victory in battle. The bonus honor awarded should be similar to previous totals, but will reward players for taking more active roles in Alterac Valley toward defending or attacking key locations and NPCs.
Lastly, we are changing NPC interactions within Alterac Valley. We have reduced the number of elite NPCs in Stormpike and Frostwolf holds as well as sent all Commanders and Lieutenants out of Alterac Valley. They are currently in search of other battle opportunities. This should reduce the amount of NPCs that players will have to fight and place more focus on PvP combat over key locations on the map.
Strategy is the name of the game in Alterac Valley, and these changes will bring out the need for more teamwork and coordination from both the Horde and the Alliance as they vie for domination of this battleground.
Hortus had the following to say about the next patch 2.2.3, which will be on the Player Test Realms (PTRs) soon.
We will be updating the PTR for 2.2.3 PTR soonish.
I do not have any more information about the PTR at this time, when specific information is available it will be posted here.
Please delete your WoWtest folder from within your World of Warcraft Directory and wait until an announcement is made before downloading the new patch.
I would advise not attempting to copy characters until an announcement is made unless you want them to end up on the wrong server like 2.2.2.
When asked what Wrath of the Lich King will do for the lack of available tanks and healers for groups, Bornakk replied with this interesting tidbit.
While we don't currently plan to add new healer options, we plan to make the Death Knight a viable tanking option and changes are coming to Warriors soon that should allow Arms/Fury warriors to be more viable tanks.
He also goes on to mention possibly implementing an itemrack-type feature that would help you change your suits more efficiently. Read the full post here.
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