Tuesday, 24 April 2012 14:00
Filed under: Realm Status, News items
Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. With a new wave of 400,000 Mists of Pandaria beta invites having gone out this past week, everyone with an Annual Pass should now have their invites. If you have yours, you may want to read up on our guides to being a better beta tester.
I have to admit, when I am not testing my death knight, one of the things I have been doing is creating monks of various races to get a feel for whose combat animations look the coolest. Of course, none of them quite face up to pandaren just because they all have the whole issue of being old models, but you get some cool moves. I"m finding I really like Forsaken monks. They almost hearken back to the old ghouls of WCIII that they came from.
Whether you"re in the beta or not, you"ll want to keep reading. We have all the latest beta news you"ll want to know about, as well as class news, opinions, and the rest. Downtime today is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, so you should have time to get caught up. Keep reading for more.
Hot news and features
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Patch 4.3.3 is live, and with it, some changes to the customer support UI. We"ll show you the ropes.
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Check out the latest patch 4.3 hotfixes for April 17.
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World bosses are coming back with a vengeance in Mists of Pandaria, and Matt has a quick guide to etiquette and expectations for taking them down.
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Chase takes a look at three monk abilities that call back to classic fighting games.
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Rossi offers a beginner"s guide to WoW lore.
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Anne offers some advice for dealing with in-game harassment.
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Brian takes a look at what WoW players search for on Google.
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We offer more transmogrification looks based off old Nintendo favorites.
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Rossi wonders if flying mounts caused more harm than good.
Continue reading Last Week in WoW: Monkly business edition  Last Week in WoW: Monkly business edition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tuesday, 24 April 2012 02:00
Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Cataclysm
Blizzard has posted a reminder that the WoW Annual Pass, which grants you a copy of Diablo III, access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, and a Tyrael horse in WoW, is closing up shop on Monday, April 30. You have until Monday, April 30 to sign up for the pass, and the deal will be retired. We have no word yet as of the future of the program or if it will be repeated, but from the numbers, 1.2 million people is a pretty great subscriber grab. I"d expect to see something like this again soon, potentially annually. Continue reading Reminder: WoW Annual Pass last chance April 30 Reminder: WoW Annual Pass last chance April 30 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tuesday, 24 April 2012 00:00
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Burning Crusade, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria
The question of whether flying mounts may have ruined Azeroth is a hard question for me to even posit, because I love flying mounts. I love being able to fly right over things that annoy me, drop right in on quest objectives and soar right out again. I loved that we could finally fly in Azeroth when Cataclysm shipped, and I was absolutely in favor of being able to use my flying mount to skip over stuff I disliked when questing and leveling up.
But it"s worth considering: Did that convenience that I so love come at too high a cost? Did being able to fly over obstacles keep me from appreciating how much detail went into the zones? Did it ruin world exploration, something that a lot of players got a lot of enjoyment out of for a great deal of vanilla WoW"s run? Did incorporating flying mounts into Azeroth, in addition to forcing a complete redesign of the world, also end up stripping out interesting and cool places you had to really work at to find and visit? Let"s discuss the pros and cons. Continue reading Did flying mounts ruin Azeroth? Did flying mounts ruin Azeroth? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Monday, 23 April 2012 22:00
Filed under: News items
Proving once again that anything is possible with creative use of game mechanics, Shantál on Al"akir (EU) has successfully soloed the heroic version of the Alysrazor encounter. I"ve done some soloing myself in the past, and I can say that this is one of the most impressive individual feats I"ve seen, especially from a non-tank class. To my knowledge, this is the first heroic tier 12 encounter to be soloed, period.
According to Shantál, many hours were spent "figuring out the tactics, pushing DPS to the limit, and not going crazy after dozens of near kills." For a full strategy explanation, check out the thread on MMO-Champion.
Shadow priest takes down solo heroic Alysrazor originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sunday, 22 April 2012 23:00
Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You"re playing the game, you"re fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.
I failed long ago to turn my brothers from their course. And creation has paid the price.
How must it feel to be ageless? To watch as millennia tick by, each century the span of a breath and gone in an instant? To the draenei, the lives of humans must seem incredibly short-lived. To the Prophet Velen, who is at least 25,000 years old, we must seem like motes of dust, winking in and out of existence so quickly that we can scarcely be recognized as entities before we cease to exist. Velen has led the draenei through terror and triumph, from world to world, always gently spreading the benevolent message of the Light to any who wish to hear.
Yet for a being of such grace, purity and peace, Velen is also a creature of unfathomable sorrow. For Velen has been granted the gift of Sight, and with the gift he can see the infinite paths of futures that may not be, of worlds born and fallen in the blink of an eye. And despite that gift, Velen cannot prevent what is yet to pass. He cannot prevent that which has gone before, and will come again. And he could not prevent the path his friends chose, nor could he persuade them their new ally was in fact a monster so horrific that his hellish grasp would wreak havoc on immeasurable worlds.
For one that treasures life in the way only the Light can teach, it is a heavy burden to bear. Continue reading Know Your Lore: Velen, the Prophet Know Your Lore: Velen, the Prophet originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sunday, 22 April 2012 19:00
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Comics, Sunday Morning Funnies
Sunday Morning Funnies is your weekly list of WoW -related web comics.
Happy belated anniversary, Kuo"s Fox Rain!
Black Dragons Chronicles is having Technical Difficulties, but we have been assured that they will be temporary.
As always, if you know of a WoW-related comic that isn"t featured on this list, drop a link into the comments section!
Continue reading Sunday Morning Funnies: Me too Sunday Morning Funnies: Me too originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Saturday, 21 April 2012 05:30
The World of Warcraft expansion: Mists of Pandaria is coming soon, although as of this writing it’s still in early beta test and has lots of bugs. Still, all of the bugs will be fixed (or most, anyway) and the expansion will launch and the rush to 90 will start. (I predict 17 hours in-game time for [...]
Saturday, 21 April 2012 02:00
Filed under: Blizzard, News items
If you"re having a little trouble with the Mists of Pandaria beta for one reason or another, Blizzard has just announced a hotfix for your issues: the Diablo III open beta weekend is happening from Friday, April 20 to Monday, April 23, closing things up at 10 a.m. PDT. Anyone with an active Battle.net account can sign up, download the client, and make their BattleTag. This open beta weekend looks like a big testing ground for the BattleTags system as well as Diablo III"s architecture on a large scale. Continue reading Can"t play the Mists beta right now? How about Diablo III? Can"t play the Mists beta right now? How about Diablo III? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Saturday, 21 April 2012 00:00
Filed under: Lore
Thousands of years ago, even before the War of the Ancients came to pass, there were weapons of legend, weapons created not by mere mortal hands but by those who soared above. The secrets of the mighty blade Quel"Serrar were not lost to time; they were merely hidden away from prying eyes. Players in vanilla World of Warcraft searched the deserted halls of Dire Maul high and low for record of this story, contained in Foror"s Compendium of Dragon Slaying, for once they had the book, they began the path to wield the blade of legend themselves.
Quel"Serrar was not a legendary weapon like Thunderfury or Sulfuras, but it was almost as rare. Unlike the Bindings of the Windseeker or the Eye of Sulfuras, the item required to begin the chain was BoE. This meant that very, very rarely you could find the item on the Auction House -- but if you did happen to be so lucky, you"d pay an arm and a leg for it. Only warriors and paladins could accept the quest for the blade, but the book would drop for anyone who was lucky enough to find it in the corridors of Dire Maul. Continue reading Weapons of Lore: Quel"Serrar Weapons of Lore: Quel"Serrar originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Friday, 20 April 2012 23:00
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding
According to Wowtrack.com, the number of 25-man raiding guilds is several orders of magnitude smaller than the number of 10-man raiding guilds. Why is Blizzard spending so much effort balancing both the 10- and 25-man raid formats when the 25-man raiding community contains an incredibly low percentage of the raiding population?
Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym recently posted this on a forum thread about the subject:
 Zarhym
We"ll continue making adjustments as necessary to keep 10- and 25-player raids within a relative alignment, in terms of time investment, difficulty and rewards. It may never be perfect, but we still see interest in both raid sizes for different reasons. And ultimately we"ll continue designing 25-player raids as long as there are a decent number of guilds interested in the format. We"ve seen no evidence as of yet that such interest is waning to any degree that should cause us great concern.
We tend to begin raid design around 25 players anyway before tuning for the various sizes and difficulties. That, when combined with our intent to carry on with 25-player Raid Finder group sizes, makes it very much worth our time to continue designing 25-player raids.
Regardless of what players" personal preferences or opinions are regarding the varied raid formats in World of Warcraft, we don"t see removing options as a smart choice in the foreseeable future.
Continue reading Raiding: Weighing the benefits of 25-man raids vs. 10-man raids Raiding: Weighing the benefits of 25-man raids vs. 10-man raids originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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