Blizzard just released their Warlock Q&A with Ghostcrawler and pals. This follows in the series of many others, which you can find in
WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.
Some of the highlights of this Q&A session include:
- Blizzard is considering giving different models to Warlock pets.
- Blizzard wants to make the Warlock experience more different from that of a Mage.
- Affliction and Destruction are doing good damage, Demonology is lagging behind.
- Warlocks are underrepresented in PvP currently, this needs to be fixed.
- Basic idea for the new Soul Shard system: Soul Shards will provide a combat (damage) boost, but should not be something Locks need to farm. This change will be beyond Patch 3.2., with more information ideally at BlizzCon 2009. A new Soul Shard system sure would be a Cataclysmic event, right?
- Soulshatter cooldown is going to be lowered to 3 minutes.
Read the full Q&A after the break.
Continue reading Warlock Q&A with Ghostcrawler and pals
The other day, we reported on China's recent ban on trading real currency for virtual goods, and it was hailed as the end of gold selling in the MMO world. Unfortunately, it may not actually play out that way. While this would put a stop to some gold selling, it won't stop all of it thanks to a convenient little loophole.
That loophole is the fact that their law has no jurisdiction over foreign transactions. While it absolutely can put a stop to these transactions on Chinese soil using Chinese servers and Chinese currency, Chinese goldfarmers can still happily (well, probably not happily) scrounge up gold on American realms and sell it to American players. Most likely, this new law won't have an impact on the gold selling industry whatsoever. The people being impacted are those crafting their games on a model of microtransactions rather than a subscription model. Developers, not gold farmers, will be harmed by this. A game like Free Realms is no longer a feasible option in China.
Continue reading China's gold farming ban not really a ban
Earlier this week we reported on Nethaera's stunning revelation that faction changes were in the works. Yeah, I was just as amazed. It might just be an idea at the moment, a work in progress which we might not get access to until a patch or even the next expansion. The logistics are mind-boggling. Would this be a literally blending of species into factions so Humans could join the Horde and Taurens the Alliance or would your character literally be transformed into another species? How exactly would the lore work around that? We've had character customisation for a while now and the ability to change gender but changing faction and possibly even species. That a whole new kettle of fish.
So, constant readers, in the wake of this bombshell I'm very eager to know what you think. Does the very idea of changing faction seem contrary to how the game works? Would you consider jumping factions? Would you rather see characters choose whether to become Horde or Alliance? Could you change your very species to join the opposing faction? From a lore perspective, how do you think would this work and, indeed, does it need to have a basis in lore? After all no one questioned the gender change. What do you think?
When I'm not playing WoW, I'm usually found indulging in manga and have been devouring the Warcraft series ever since the Sunwell Trilogy came out. Of all the characters introduced through comics and manga, the most tragic next to Anveena has to be Trag Highmountain. I've watched over the last year as more characters from the print franchises began to appear in-game, and there's something about seeing them translated into the game which gives me an amazing thrill.
We've met Anveena and her soul mate Kalec, Tyri and Jorad as well as Broll and that Blood Elf chick whose always hanging around Varian, so I've often wondered when Trag would turn up. It's inevitable given how his quest to Icecrown is in keeping with Wrath of the Lich King. Imagine my surprise when I logged on to the PTR for the first time this morning to find one Tauren Death Knight standing guard over one of the incapacitated forms of one of the Coliseum bosses.
Yes, it's our old friend Trag, now a level 80 NPC. While seeming hostile, he makes no move to attack the Alliance or speak, he just seems to stand near Gormok the Impaler. I'm sure he'll get some lines by the time Patch 3.2 goes live though. Having not yet read Warcraft: Legends' final volume, I'm curious to find out what happened to him but it's nice to know he's finally free of the Lich King's thrall.
Just to clarify, the Jeeves schematic has a chance to be "skinned" by engineers off of any level 70+ mechanical units. The drop rate starts incredibly low, but increases substantially based on the level and difficulty of the mechanical unit. So Ulduar bosses that can be "skinned" by engineers have a much better chance of dropping the schematic than lower-level mechanical units found in Northrend.
That's great news! It's available for non-raiders at (Zarhym says) a very reasonable drop rate, but since raiders will get the most use out of it, mechanical raid bosses are much more likely to drop it than a mechagnome in Borean Tundra.
Following that, he also announced a number of changes, which are listed after the break.
Continue reading Clarification on upcoming Engineering changes in 3.2
The heat is on here in the UK and we've actually got a summer. Shocking, I know. But, rather than send people outside to soak up the rays the blistering heat and humidity has forced most inside. Suddenly Azeroth is that much more appealing, you can't get sunstroke in there, oh no. After Alex's terrible German accent last week (I'm really sorry about that, German readers, it won't happen again), things have settled down and we're back to the normal cycle of weekly maintenance.
Of course, this means that rather than rolling restarts, all the European realms will be offline from 5:00am until 11:00am, Paris time (CEST). But that's not all, Blizzard are also going to be performing maintenance on their website (this includes the Armory, the main website, the forums and the Blizzard Store) between 3:00am and 7:00am Paris time (CEST). So if you want to check Turpster's stats, buy Diablo II, whinge about (insert class here) being nerfed or just recruit a friend, you might want to do so outside of these times.
Daniel has once again crafted a fantastic little post to keep you entertained and don't forget we'll be giving away some shiny Fields of Honor loot cards in the morning, just for you (don't tell the sleeping Americans). Just keep your eye on the front page and you could win your own chicken mount. In honor of that, I finally met the virtual form of Turpster on the PTR (you can find us both on Fordring). He wanted to practice the lesser known sport of chicken jousting but this mention of that noble and ancient sport caused the world server to crash. As I starred at the blank screen I couldn't help but wonder. Do you think he's trying to compensate for something? What could it be?
Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all those other shiny MMOs! Check out this roundup of the latest news from the wider MMO world.
