Typhoon bug dominates the Wrath beta Remember a few content patches ago, the PTR had a fun little bug where Warlocks had the spell effect of Seed of Corruption castable rather than the spell itself? So Warlocks had an infinite range, no cooldown, no global cooldown, mana free, instant Seed of Corruption? Remember the chaos that caused? Well, guess what? It happened again! No, no, it wasn’t Seed of Corruption this time. It happened with the new Druid spell Typhoon. Specifically Typhoon Rank 5. It’s already been hotfixed, so don’t bother trying it now- you missed out. If you want to see exactly what people were doing with this spell, just check out the video above. I had a chance to experience a little of this firsthand, and it was impressive, to say the least. A Moonkin rolling up to an enemy faction’s town and laying waste is just hilarious to see, though not so much after the tenth time. Remember, this thing didn’t even trigger the Global Cooldown. Druids were running around with macros that cast this spell ten or twenty times simultaneously. Nothing

Balance buffed, Resto nerfed in 8962II Restoration: ·                                                         Lifebloom healing reduced and mana cost increased. I’ve never played resto, so I’m not sure whether this was a merited nerf or not – opinions? As to the extent of the nerf, rank 1 went from 273 to 224 healing, and from 220 to 332 mana (at level 70). That’s an 18% nerf in healing done and a 51% nerf in mana cost. Ouch. Apparently this was done to address the concern that with enough spirit, Resto druids could never go OOM. ·                                                         Tree of Life aura doubled (and remember, it hits all raid members now). ·                                                         Improved Tree of Life reverted to increase healing spell power by 15% of the druid’s spirit. Cool.

How quickly did progression flow? The push was thrilling. We moved so fast that before we killed Illidan, there were only three boss encounters that took us more than a day to master: Kael, Archimonde and Illidan. Several times, we killed more than one new boss per day — Kaz’rogal and Azgalor, and Mother Shahraz and Illidari Council. There was absolutely no beating the rush and the thrill of knowing we were on the verge of passing the Horde competition and taking the server first Illidan. Again, though I’d like to take credit for this personally, in truth it was a team effort. I’ll say again that this is the most talented group of players I’ve had the privilege of raiding with. All this pressure to perform … What’s the guild atmosphere? Do you keep things pretty tight on voice channels and chat? Many people have perceptions of top guilds as being elitist or pricks. Like any guild, we have a few of those types, but I think this guild’s personality is what really makes it special. Since most of our raiders came from Karazhan guilds

Faction Champion in 8885   From the 2008 Worldwide Invitational, we learned of a new way that we’ll all be grinding faction reputation come the expansion. Namely, you will be able to become a faction’s Champion.   This is not a permanent change, and you are not stuck with only one faction, Instead, you simply put on the tabard and la! You are the new Champion.   We were told that if you run a Coilfang dungeon wearing a Lower City tabard, you will gain the usual reputation for the Cenarion Expedition from the dungeon, as well as Lower City reputation. Supposedly, the tabards, usually acquired at exalted, will be moved to friendly or honored.   While this makes me and my hard-earned tabard collection a bit sore, the prospect of earning reputation for any faction that I need, without running their dungeons over and over, is quite appealing. Here are the Champions we know of so far: 1. Argent Champion 2. Ebon Champion 3. Champion of the Kirin Tor 4. Wyrmrest Champion The descriptions are all the same. For example, “You champion the cause of the Argent

 Blood Sport: Arena-weary   It happens from time to time. Players get tired. Whether it’s from raiding or PvP or just playing the game in general, there comes a low point where you just feel like taking a break. Right now, I’m just about tired of Arenas. This comes after a long wait for Season 4 to start. It just doesn’t feel as fun anymore and even a little stale. Nothing significant has changed from the last Season, with the biggest — if it can be called that — class balance change coming in the form of a nerf to Cheat Death. Class representation hasn’t changed, with Druids, Rogues, and Warriors still generally on top of the 2v2 and 3v3 food chain.   I write this knowing that two classes I play — Paladin and Shaman — are bottom-feeders in the 2000+ range in 2v2 and 3v3 brackets (along with, you guessed it, Hunters). That’s fine. I know my classes’ places in the hierarchy of Arena viability. Pro player Serennia’s poor and embarrassing use of the Paladin at MLG Orlando only further exposed the problems of the

Starting Out: The Miller Tells His Tale As we’ve mentioned before, Herbalism is the complementary profession for Inscription, which means that if you want to get into it, you’d best save up a bunch of herbs now. With the herbs, you’ll be primarily making pomace and ink in order to create various scrolls. You start by using Peacebloom and Silverleaf to make basic inks, Ivory and Silver, respectively. Those will go yellow at 15, green at 32, and gray at 50. You’ll also be able to make your first item, a Scroll of Stamina, which uses 2 Ivory Ink and 1 piece of Light Parchment. That recipe goes yellow at 40 and green at 52. You’ll also be able to make scrolls of intellect and spirit starting at 15 skill. Scrolls of Intellect will take Silver Ink, while you’ll use both Ivory and Silver inks for Scroll of Spirit. At 30 skill, you’ll learn Milling. Milling is similar in function and form to Prospecting. It grinds 5 herbs into a pomace which is then used to make high level inks — the higher your inscription skill, the higher the level of

Tank Gear Death Knights do have one major difference from Warriors when it comes to tanking itemization: they can’t use shields. That means, of course, that you don’t want gear with shield block value or block rating stats. Strength will be rather important though, not just for gaining threat, but for conversion to parry rating. High armor and high parry seem to be the statistics of choice (besides the obvious) for the Death Knight tank. It is, though, a bit difficult to properly guess what our final itemization will look like on tanking. Once we’re 80 and we’ve seen what level 80 dungeon drops and first tier raiding gear looks like, we’ll probably have a better idea of what to expect. Weapon of Choice The two choices open to Death Knights are dual wielding and 2-handers. I admit, I’m a 2 handed man all the way. It just feels right to me, especially since all the classic scourge Death Knights also use two-handers. I admit that I’m also pulled toward the need for less hit rating. In addition, many of the skills and talents of the Death

RoleCraft: K.I.S.S. Your Character Rolling a character is one of the best parts of playing an MMORPG, bringing to mind the excitement of taking on a new role, the anticipation of adventuring with this character, and the simple yet elegant fun of roleplaying with a new personality. Perhaps all these thoughts flooding the brain have been too daunting for some, especially us roleplayers, who often take our character creation to heart. I have been asked many times the question of how to best roll a character for RP purposes. I have also heard enough roleplayers tell me how they roll their characters to know there is no one single best way to take on the task. I too have created my share of MMORPG characters over many MMO’s to discover this fact, while at the same time developing my own way to accomplish this vital feat. During my Army career, I was introduced to the widely known K.I.S.S. principle, and it is a superb one to follow when rolling a character. Now, I also create the history for my characters at the time of creation, rather than trying to specifically think and write

WoW: Blizzcon 2008 Goin’ to Disneyland Blizzard has revealed the details for this year’s Blizzcon where fans of all Blizzard products gather: Blizzard Entertainment® gaming convention returns to Anaheim Convention Center 10-11 October MARLOW, UK – 12th May, 2008 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for its third BlizzCon™ gaming convention, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on 10 and 11 October. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment®’s Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® franchises. In response to the demand to accommodate more attendees, this year’s event has expanded from two convention halls to three. “Whenever we’ve been able to meet and interact with Blizzard gamers from around the world, it’s been a great experience for us,” stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re looking forward to seeing even more of our players at this year’s BlizzCon and delivering

Warriors and mages, knights and priests, quests and monsters. All of these should sound familiar to someone who often plays games of the MMOG genre, or even of the RPG genre. With all of the E3 news lately, there has been one things that has been extremely obvious, and that is that the big title devlopers are all adapting to player’s desires. This is evident because of how every big game I have seen has included one new feature that is huge and has been huge in the past, choices! From Prince of Persia to Fable 2, all the way to Fallout 3 and Spore, all of these games give the player a lot of choices and decisions that will alter their gameplay to their own unique style. My question is, why can’t the bigger MMOG publishers adapt like console-game developers?     Let’s take a look at how MMOGs can adapt by using a console game as an example. Team Fortress 2 is one of the most popular multiplayer shooters on the computer, and for good reason. Even though you have to buy the game to play it, player’s are still in love with the game, but why? The game