Rumours Had Better Be Wrong!

Dear Blizzard,

If the rubbish posted on MMO Champion is true, and you take Thrall from us, I will have to seriously consider another game. He is OUR Warchief, leave him alone!

Sincerely,

Me.

Join the Save Thrall Facebook group!

Lazy Days…

We’re not dead! We think we’ll go for a walk.

We seem to be on summer holidays, be back soon

WoW Wow

We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

And if you don’t believe me, it’s straight from a blue.

Fire Festival and all that…

Last night I spent half an hour getting attacked on the boat to Teldrassil, gave up and went to guard the Org bonfire and get some revenge.

Popped the City Defender achievement doing that ^^

This morning I walked into Darnassus and through to Dolanaar without even a peep, and got my last bonfire.

All I need now is Ahune!

Yeah, I wasted today’s summon trying to solo him >.<

Ah well, this is one meta I know I will get

Further to the Battlegroup merge, queues seem much shorter to me, which is nice. Sadly it also means there are even more idiots who don’t kow how to play AV – 20 people to kill Balinda, one (ONE! – me) left to guard IW bunker – HEY THANKS GUYS ON EU RECKONING (H), SURE I CAN DEAL WITH 7 ALLIES ON MY OWN! For about 10 seconds. We ended up with no GYs, no towers and they just roflstomped us at Frostwolf. So embarrassing.

/sigh

More travel news for patch 3.2

“In the next major content patch we will be adding a few methods of improved transportation to areas of interest while leveling.

It is time for the denizens of Azeroth to witness the full might of the Horde as they do what they do best: employ goblins to construct zeppelin towers and float players across vast seas using sky boats. That’s right, a new zeppelin route is being added in Thunder Bluff and will transport players to Orgrimmar. Isn’t technology magnificent?

Also, brought to you by Azeroth’s greatest users of magic, are all new portals coming to Stormwind and Orgrimmar. These portals will transport players directly to the Stair of Destiny at the Dark Portal. Travel is just so much more convenient when it’s instantaneous! Players will then find that a new connecting flight path exists at the Stair of Destiny allowing players new to Outland easy and direct access to the city of Shattrath.

Keep your seat backs and tray tables in a full upright and locked position, and we hope you continue to enjoy your methods of travel in Azeroth and beyond!”

Escaping from Mulgore without a Mage or a Warlock FTW!

Mount Changes FTW!

In the next major content patch, we intend to adjust mount requirements to further improve the leveling experience in World of Warcraft. In addition, cast times for summoning all mounts will be reduced to 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds. The following is a breakdown of the upcoming cost and level requirement changes we are making for each riding skill.

• Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)
  • 60% land mount speed
  • Requires level 20
  • Cost: 4 gold
  • Mount cost: 1 gold
  • Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer

• Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)
  • 100% land mount speed
  • Requires level 40
  • Cost: 50 gold
  • Mount cost: 10 gold
  • Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

• Expert Riding (Skill 225)
  • 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
  • Requires level 60
  • Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
  • Mount Cost: 50 gold
  • Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)

• Artisan Riding (Skill 300)
  • 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
  • Requires level 70
  • Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
  • Mount Cost: 100 gold

Mountain Dew Promo Pet (EU)

Edit:

Bye bye battle-bots.

Battlegroup Merge

So, Reckoning are gaining a whole German Battlegroup to play with!

Considering some of the weird languages that appear in /bg I highly doubt that’s going to cause any problems, and hopefully for us poor flailing Hordies we might actually get full sides at the start and wont have to wait several hours to play.

Lok’tar ogar!

Mountain Dew and Blizz Team Up

As reported on Zam yesterday, the World of Warcraft / Mountain Dew promotion is now entering its next phase. The intention is to promote the new WoW Mountain Dew Game Fuel.

The new game/drink alliance offers a chance to win tokens, which can be submitted in order to be entered into frequent sweepstakes to win numerous prizes. Registration is free and there is talk of all new sign ups obtaining a code for a very special new vanity pet.

Additionally, this offers a good way to support your faction by joining Horde or Alliance (basically a nice little marketing scheme to decide on which flavour people will be more inclined to buy.). Being a total UD, and a fan of all things cherry flavour, I’ve naturally chosen to follow my horde destiny.

I believe that the promotion is going to be world-wide, thus my EU friends can hop aboard and get a kick ass robot pet. This is despite the fact that Mountain Dew never really took off in the UK. I remember it was big for about a week in the mid 90′s, and then (me becoming a slave to the soda), having to drive 30 miles from Bridgend to Blackwood, Gwent in order to find the only gas station that still sold it.

A small rant about humans in mmo’s

I read a post on Allakhazam a few weeks ago about the depiction of Humans as playable races within MMO’s. Some excellent points were touched on, hence my decision to mention it here and now.

I have never understood why people would want to play a human in a fantasy game. The idea seems as ludicrous to me as bathing in a lava flow. My whole reason for NOT wanting to play a human in my favourite game is down to the fact that I am human every second of every day in reality (state the obvious there Baal), so to opt to be one in a fantasy realm kind of takes the whole “fantasy” thing out of it. God, life is mundane enough without transposing any element of reality into fantasy. See, the clue is in this word…FANTASY. If you don’t have the imagination to play something other than your general self, stay away fro FANTASY games.

I have always thought of humans as the vanilla variety of races in gaming. Plain, simple and boring. It’s the safe option. Sorry, but I don’t do safe.

Despite the fact that in reality we are the worst species to have ever graced the planet, in the gaming world the humans are the “good guys”. Great! Last I recall, the Orcs or Trolls had nothing to do with the Holocaust…that was down to humans. Need I continue?!

I move that humans should be removed as a playable option from all mmo’s. It’s futile and pointless. I’d say before you waste your money buying an mmo just to play a human, sit down with your vanilla ice cream and print out an “I have no imagination” bumper sticker.