Armory Stats - Flying Achievements, Arena Queue Length, Tweets, Poll, DLC #504

September 14, 2015, 11:09 pm

≫ Next: September 15 Hotfixes, Patch 6.2.2a Notes, Blue Tweets, Overwatch Heroes

≪ Previous: Starcraft II - Legacy of the Void Cinematic, Artcraft Updates, Tweets, Poll

Malthael Cosplay from LBCC 2015, Thrill Conquest Builds, Jaetch's DB Farming Wizard

Deck Spotlight: Kibler's ATLC Dragon Priest, EU Road to BlizzCon Trailer

Ranked Play Leaderboards, Rotation for Sept. 15, 2015, Shop Sales, Into the Nexus #66

Armory Stats - Flying Achievements
With flying finally here, we are checking back in to see how players are doing on unlocking flight. You can see the numbers from last month here.

The sample used today is 1.8 million players (not characters) that have logged in since August 15th. Only level 100 characters are included in the data. Characters are grouped by player, so no matter how many characters a player has, they only count once.

We included the 200 Treasures achievement just for comparison purposes, only 100 is required for Master Treasure Hunter, which is required for Draenor Pathfinder.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Name

Points

Percent

September 15 Hotfixes, Patch 6.2.2a Notes, Blue Tweets, Overwatch Heroes

September 16, 2015, 1:53 am

≫ Next: Warcraft Movie Update, Pepe Achievement, 50% Off Grinning Reaver, Tweets, Final Boss

≪ Previous: Armory Stats - Flying Achievements, Arena Queue Length, Tweets, Poll, DLC #504

Rank #1 Barbarian Clear, Zero Crit Shenlong's Monk

Dragon Decks! Sigma's Dragon Priest, Seraph's Dragon Shaman, xBAcex's Dragon Warrior

Judgement Uther Available, Rexxar Builds and Bugs, Misha Control Tips and More

Patch 6.2.2a Hotfixes - September 15

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel

Archimonde
- Shadowfel Burst no longer requires line-of-sight to deal damage or knock players up into the air.

PvP
Ashran

Players on a multi-passenger mount flying into Ashran should now be placed into the correct phase.

Mercenary Mode

Mages that fought for the opposite faction as a mercenary should no longer incorrectly retain the ability to use the opposing faction's teleport spells afterwards.

Achievements

Heirloom Hoarder - Fixed an issue where players were not receiving the Chauffeured Chopper after completing the achievement, Heirloom Hoarder.

Patch 6.2.2a Notes

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Bug Fixes

Fixed an animation issue with Bladestorm that affected Dwarf Warriors.
Fixed an issue that caused some Archaeology dig sites to take on an odd shape and prevented them from being completed.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Like how the emerald drake made sense? If it's via achievement, it really doesn't need any context.
.I'd argue that while this is true, it's so cool and iconic that efforts should be made to make it fit a story/event. (Muffinus)
Makes perfect sense for a TIMEWALKING mount. Complete all time walking dungeons or something.
TW is a good vehicle, but I think you could do more, eg hidden infinite rares in TW dung's up to no good. (Muffinus)

Poll - Archaeology Leveling
Please exclude any leveling you did from the fragments gathered from the mine or missions!

Did you significantly level Archaeology (outside of the fragments from the mine)?

Overwatch - New Heroes Teased
Blizzard teased two new heroes today! The full details are on Overpwn.

↧

Warcraft Movie Update, Pepe Achievement, 50% Off Grinning Reaver, Tweets, Final Boss

September 17, 2015, 1:13 am

≫ Next: September 17 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, BlizzCon Opening Week, Twitch, Overwatch Teasers

≪ Previous: September 15 Hotfixes, Patch 6.2.2a Notes, Blue Tweets, Overwatch Heroes

More Thrill Conquest Builds, Support Barb for GR Experience Farm

Too Many Portals Brawl, The Angry Chicken w/ Amaz, Vanilla Extract Card Voting

Rexxar Info and Hotfix, Diablo Battlegrounds Easter Egg, Browder Tweets, Epic Plays #46

Warcraft Movie Update
The Hollywood Reporter talked about Legendary and Universal today, claiming that sources say Warcraft is seen as "problem movies" by Universal. Duncan Jones isn't worried though!

Patch 6.2.2 - I Found Pepe!
Muffinus confirmed that I Found Pepe! is still not active with Patch 6.2.2. We may get one other costume with A Frightening Friend next month, as it is a Hallow's End achievement.

Draenor Dungeons Bonus Event September 16 – 21

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Through the end of the day on Monday, it’s a great time to join other players in Draenor dungeons. This week’s Bonus Event rewards you with reputations gains when you defeat dungeon enemies on Heroic and Mythic difficulties.

Make sure to pick up the event-only quest Emissary of War in your Garrison before you head out. It rewards an Iron Fleet Treasure Chest (containing one Hellfire Citadel Heroic quality item) that you won’t want to pass up.

50% Off Grinning Reaver Mount – This Week Only

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ride through the jungles of Tanaan, buzz the giant beasts of Nagrand, or just linger menacingly near the mailbox in your faction’s capital—all while on a mount with a terrifying grin on its face! The Grinning Reaver mount is now on sale for 50% off its regular price until Tuesday, September 22, 2015 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.

Add one to your stable today!

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Raids
real talk: LFD and LFR, ultimately, at the end of the day, all is said and done, bad for a game?
I still don't know. (OccupyGStreet)
If you put a gun to my head I'd say LFG with harder dungeons and no LFR. But it's a crap shoot. (OccupyGStreet)
Easyish Naxx and LK dungeons set expectations that were hard to ever undo. Maybe LFG was just a symptom at that point. (OccupyGStreet)
is the irrevocability of a feature a big part of the design decision or is it more if a hindsight is 20/20 thing?
For a live game (like LoL/WoW) you always have to think about the precedents you set. It's like being a SCOTUS judge. (OccupyGStreet)
I wasn't paying attention during the Cata difficulty outrage--would it have been possible to soldier through?
Yes. Better would have been to provide an alternative for those who didn't enjoy wiping. (OccupyGStreet)

Why do you think many players are longing for TBC days. Raiding was impossible back then..
I wouldn't call it nostalgia per se, but we remember the feeling we had when everything felt so new and we miss that feeling. (OccupyGStreet)

Game Design
Thoughts on allowing (or not) respec in single player RPGs? Respec kinda waters down character building... (1/2)
It depends if you want starting a new character to be a good or bad thing. No respec can encourage that. (OccupyGStreet)

Misc
greg i really just want you to stop answering questions about world of warcraft and focus on your new better life, forever
I try to answer questions that are applicable to game development as a whole. (OccupyGStreet)

Poll - Warcraft Movie
Are you going to watch the movie?

Are you going to watch the Warcraft movie?

Final Boss #96 - Nixxiom & Moocluck
This week Final Boss talked to two people that make WoW Machinima.

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September 17 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, BlizzCon Opening Week, Twitch, Overwatch Teasers

September 18, 2015, 3:34 am

≫ Next: Pirate's Day, Armory Stats, Blizzard and Random House Partnership, Tweets, Fan Art

≪ Previous: Warcraft Movie Update, Pepe Achievement, 50% Off Grinning Reaver, Tweets, Final Boss

Datamined Patch, Tamplier's Diablo Fanart

Ben Brode Interview - Deck Slots, Secretadin, Internal Stats; Strength in Numbers, HS Probability Guide

BNet and Twitch Integration, New Maps, Blizzcon Schedule Revealed, Top 5 Fails #16

Patch 6.2.2a Hotfixes - September 17

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel

Gorefiend
- Increased the duration for Digest and Resisting to 35 seconds (up from 30 seconds) on Mythic difficulty.

Grimrail Depot

Fixed an issue where players were incorrectly able to reflect damage for a number of abilities during the Nitrogg Thundertower encounter.

Icecrown Citadel

The Lich King: Players that fall off the platform during the final stage of the encounter should no longer remain stuck in combat and be able to release their spirits.

PvP
Ashran

Recreant is now applied if a player does not accept the prompt to enter Ashran.

Mercenary Mode

Fixed a situation that could cause the Mercenary mode buff to not be applied correctly on a character.

Achievements

Master of the Seas: The title associated with this achievement is now account-wide for level 100 characters.
Rumble in the Jungle: The title associated with this achievement is now account-wide for level 100 characters.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Matchmaking Normal Difficulty Groups
Very unlikely, the extra convenience of having an automated queuing system for normal mode would be immediately defeated by the lack of coordination that these groups are usually accustomed to.

LFR's difficulty level is tuned exactly to match the level of coordination that one can expect (on average) from a group formed by an automated system.

Let people queue for Normal if they want to - but don't change mechanics to accommodate random queueing. Leave Nm as it is, difficulty-wise.
Given that extra option, I believe very few would be satisfied with queueing for LFR only.

What you said actually sounds reasonable at first, but once such an option becomes available, it creates false expectations. If such content isn't properly tuned for random grouping, it will only lead to nerf requests. We see that happening all the time even in LFR as I'm sure you're all aware, especially when new raids launch and they're slightly over-tuned.

There's also this issue with automated systems and their detrimental effects on the social potential of a game, which is an essential factor for any mmorpg, so we want to be very careful whenever we expand or change such systems. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

BlizzCon Opening Week – October 28 to November 1

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Last year, we needed an extra weekend for all the World Championship eSports. This year, we need a week! The Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, and WoW Arena World Championships, along with the StarCraft II WCS Global Finals, will launch from Burbank, CA between October 28 and November 1.

The BlizzCon Opening Week will host 96 elite eSports players from across the globe battling for the opportunity to be crowned World Champion at BlizzCon. This is eSports you need to watch, and you’ll have plenty of streaming options available on BlizzCon.com for each game.

So, which matches will be played at BlizzCon Opening Week, and when? We’ve broken it out for each game below:

Hearthstone World Championship
Prize Pool: $250,000
Number of Players: 16
Schedule: October 28-31, 9:00 a.m. PDT

Matches: The Hearthstone World Championship kicks off with four groups of four players vying against each other in a dual-elimination format. Match 1 of each group will play October 28, with Match 2 and the first eliminations on October 29. October 30-31 will see each match advancing a player to BlizzCon, as we make our way through the winners and decider matches of each group.

Heroes of the Storm World Championship
Prize Pool: $500,000
Number of Players: 8 Teams (5 players per team)
Schedule: October 28, 1:30 p.m. PDT

Matches: The Heroes of the Storm World Championship features 2 dual-tournament groups in the first round. No teams will be eliminated during Opening Week, but each team will get to show their stuff in the initial matches of each group.

WoW Arena World Championship
Prize Pool: $250,000
Number of Players: 8 teams (3 players per team)
Schedule: October 30-31, 1:30 p.m. PDT

Matches: Each of the 2 dual-tournament groups in the Round of 8 will compete October 30-31. Two teams will advance to the Round of 4 bracket (played at BlizzCon November 6) based on the results of these matches, while the other two Ro4 teams will be determined at BlizzCon.

StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals
Prize Pool: $250,000
Number of Players: 16
Schedule: November 1, 10:00 a.m. PST

Matches: The Global Finals will follow last year’s tried and true format. The top 16 players in the WCS Global Standings will be seeded into a single elimination bracket. All matches of the Round of 16 bracket will take place November 1. Eight of the 16 players will advance to the Round of 8 matches (played at BlizzCon November 6).

You’ll also be able to watch coverage of the BlizzCon opening ceremony and all of the StarCraft II, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and Heroes of the Storm matches taking place at BlizzCon for free in HD at www.blizzcon.com. The StarCraft II finals will also be available to watch via the official WCS website.

Twitch Battle.Net Integration
Twitch has added the ability to link your Battle.Net account to your Twitch account and Blizzard is giving away a Heroes of the Storm portrait to those who link it and watch some of a Heroes of the Storm regional championship. Some kind of reward could be added for WoW in the future!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)

Twitch and Blizzard are teaming up to reward those who not only love to play Heroes of the Storm, but watch it, too!

Secure your portrait
For a limited time, anyone who watches a Heroes of the Storm regional championship while logged into Twitch with a linked Battle.net account will receive a special “Storm Watcher” portrait in Heroes of the Storm.

Your first opportunity to secure this portrait is quickly approaching. Tune in to the Americas Championship on September 19 and 20, and you’ll be among the first to receive the new portrait. After watching the Americas or other regional championship events, the portrait will be awarded to qualifying players starting in October, when it will appear in your in-game portrait collection.

Log in to your account on Twitch.
Navigate to the Settings menu by clicking your account name in the top-right corner of the home screen.
Click on the Connections tab.
Follow the instructions after selecting a region and clicking Connect next to Battle.net.

Click Here to go straight to the Twitch.tv settings page!

Do I need to keep my accounts linked to receive the portrait?
In order to make sure we're able to properly grant the portrait award, please make sure you leave the accounts linked until the portrait has been awarded to your Battle.net account. We hope to offer additional promotions using this technology in the future, so we recommend leaving the account link in place if you’re interested in participating.

If I watch another region's championship and have my account linked, will I receive the reward in my home region?
Yes, watching the Americas, Korea, Europe, or Taiwan championships on Twitch will grant you the in-game portrait in all regions.

If I watch the event on a mobile device will I receive the portrait?
Yes, as long as you are logged in to Twitch and your accounts are linked while you watch the event, you will be eligible for the portrait reward.

Will other Blizzard games offer similar promotions?
The Heroes of the Storm “Storm Watcher” portrait is the only active promotion currently available. We’re considering rolling out similar promotions for our other games, but we don’t have any additional details to share at this time.

Visit HeroesoftheStorm.com/eSports to learn more about the Americas Championship and our other regional championship events!

Poll - WoW Twitch Streams
Do you watch WoW streams?

Do you watch WoW streams on Twitch?

Overwatch - More Teasers and Hints
Some more teaser images appeared today, along with a note to check back for a special report next week. You can get all of the details on Overpwn.

↧

Pirate's Day, Armory Stats, Blizzard and Random House Partnership, Tweets, Fan Art

September 19, 2015, 8:16 am

≫ Next: Brewfest 2015, Armory Stats - Brewfest Mounts, Blue Tweets, GW2 PvP Growing, DLC #505

≪ Previous: September 17 Hotfixes, Blue Posts, BlizzCon Opening Week, Twitch, Overwatch Teasers

Feedback and Suggestions Compilation, How to Archon, Crafting 25 Legendary Fists

Hearthstone September Loot Crate Items - Free Card Pack!

Americas Championship This Weekend and Sale, Monk Solo Support SEL Match

Pirate's Day
Pirates' Day is here again. The only change to the event is the addition of Big Bag of Booty.

Armory Stats - Pirate's Day and Day of the Dead
Today we are looking at how players are doing on the completion of Pirates' Day and Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead doesn't take place until November, but it is close to Blizzcon, so hopefully we will be busy with news by then.

Today's data is from 2.1 million players active since August 1, 2015.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Name

Percent

Points

Level	Type	Name	Source
100	Other	Ghostly Iron Buccaneer's Hat	Looted
1	Cosmetic	Captain's Hat	Petty Officer
1	Cosmetic	Captain's Hat	Petty Officer
1	Cosmetic	Fleet Commander's Hat	Charting a Course
1	Cosmetic	Fleet Commander's Hat	Charting a Course

Brewfest 2015, Armory Stats - Brewfest Mounts, Blue Tweets, GW2 PvP Growing, DLC #505

September 20, 2015, 3:42 pm

≫ Next: BlizzCon 2015 In-Game Goodies Round-Up

≪ Previous: Pirate's Day, Armory Stats, Blizzard and Random House Partnership, Tweets, Fan Art

Feedback and Suggestions Compilation, How to Archon, Crafting 25 Legendary Fists

Popular Constructed Decks of the Week, Archon Team League Decklists, BlizzCon Opening Week eSports

Americas Championship Playoffs!, Hottest Plays of the Week #46

Brewfest 2015
Brewfest is back again, with item level 670 trinkets, a few new rewards, and heirloom weapon upgrades! This year the event runs from September 20 to October 6. You will need 500 x Brewfest Prize Token to purchase the new rewards.

If you are still leveling alts, don't forget to grab the Brewfest Enthusiast buff at 6:15 AM and 6:15 PM server time outside of Ironforge and Orgrimmar at the Tapping of the Keg ceremony.

New Rewards

Level	Type	Name	Cost
1	Junk	Steamworks Sausage Grill	200 ×
1	Companion Pets	Stout Alemental	200 ×
1	Other	Brewfest Banner	100 ×
90	Consumable	Ancient Heirloom Scabbard	300 ×
100	Consumable	Timeworn Heirloom Scabbard	500 ×

Updated Trinkets

Level	Type	Name
670	Trinket	Brawler's Statue
670	Trinket	Mithril Wristwatch
670	Trinket	Coren's Cold Chromium Coaster
670	Trinket	Bitterest Balebrew Charm
670	Trinket	Bubbliest Brightbrew Charm
670	Trinket	Thousand-Year Pickled Egg

Old Rewards

Level	Type	Slot	Name	Cost	Model Viewer
1	Companion Pets		Wolpertinger's Tankard	200 ×
1	Companion Pets		Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm	100 ×
20	Holiday		Preserved Brewfest Hops	20 ×
1	Quest		"Brew of the Month" Club Membership Form	200 ×
1	Head	Head	Brown Brewfest Hat	50 ×	Modelviewer
1	Head	Head	Green Brewfest Hat	50 ×	Modelviewer
1	Head	Head	Blue Brewfest Hat	50 ×	Modelviewer
1	Head	Head	Purple Brewfest Hat	50 ×	Modelviewer
10	Head	Head	Blix's Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles	100 ×	Modelviewer
1	Chest	Chest	Brewfest Regalia	200 ×	Modelviewer
1	Chest	Chest	Brewfest Dress	200 ×	Modelviewer
1	Feet	Feet	Brewfest Boots	100 ×	Modelviewer
1	Feet	Feet	Brewfest Slippers	100 ×	Modelviewer
1	Consumable		Angry Brewfest Letter	50 ×
1	Consumable		Brewfest Pony Keg	100 ×
20	Consumable		Fresh Brewfest Hops	2 ×
20	Consumable		Fresh Dwarven Brewfest Hops	5 ×
1	Consumable		Brewfest Keg Pony	200 ×
1	Consumable		Brewhelm	2 ×
1	Consumable		Pandaren Brewpack	100 ×

Armory Stats - Brewfest Mounts
Today we are looking at collection rates of the three mounts you can earn from Brewfest. This data is from 2.1 million players active since August 1, 2015 and 3.7 million players active enough to still be on armory.

The Great Brewfest Kodo and Swift Brewfest Ram have a ~3% chance to drop from Keg-Shaped Treasure Chest and the Brewfest Ram is no longer obtainable.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Classes
Class design involves such exciting variety. One day, I may be brainstorming high-level concepts for abilities used by a pirate... (Celestalon)
...and the next, we're calculating the edge angle of an n-gon simulating a circle with variable radius that intersects two known points. (Celestalon)

Raids
Trivia question. What made you decide that the TOC/ICC model with normal/hc was better than the Ulduar model with hardmodes?
Tough to cover in 140 characters, but mainly clarity and consistency. (WarcraftDevs)

PvP
I have full conquest gear, why do I get blue medallion as human when I use Mercenary?
We didn’t feel it was appropriate to give someone a free conquest item. (WarcraftDevs)

lost my title with the new mercenary mode, specifically with my HotA title.... pvp title cant be expose in pvp
We didn’t feel it was appropriate to use faction titles with Mercenary mode. (WarcraftDevs)

Reasonable thread about recent tournament.(not mine) http://t.co/kW1RG5dB19
The whole "will never be an esport" is nonsense. But I'm fine with critiques of clarity of the broadcast. (holinka)
Our goal is to provide an exciting event for the WoW community & celebrate our players. We aren't looking to dethrone anyone. (holinka)
Not trying to be 'big-headed' or suggest you'd be completely in the wrong. I think there's a compromise for the overall better
Certainly we think we can do things to make it easier to follow and watch and we'll continue to try and improve. (holinka)

Assuming I accept what you often suggest,3v3 better gameplay.Does it make up for the -huge- watchability loss?I don't think it does
We don't plan on making the game less fun to play so it can be more fun to watch. (holinka)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

IDK if you can asnwer this but: You did play WoD before Leaving Blizzard?
Not really. Frostfire was barely playable at the time and it sounds like it evolved a lot anyway. (OccupyGStreet)

Guild Wars 2 - PvP Growing
The Game Director for Guild Wars 2 recently replied to some PvP concerns, letting players know that PvP is growing and larger than ever before.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.
While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.

Dark Legacy Comics #505 - In the Bag
DLC #505 has been released!

↧

BlizzCon 2015 In-Game Goodies Round-Up

September 21, 2015, 10:29 am

≫ Next: Armory Stats - Brewfest Achievements, Blue Posts, Tweets, New Overwatch Heroes

≪ Previous: Brewfest 2015, Armory Stats - Brewfest Mounts, Blue Tweets, GW2 PvP Growing, DLC #505

Update (10:15 PM EDT): Added tonight's hotfixes

Brewfest 2015, Armory Stats - Brewfest Mounts, Blue Tweets, GW2 PvP Growing, DLC #505

Patch 6.2.2a Hotfixes - September 21

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Creatures and NPCs
Tanaan Jungle

Remnant of the Blood Moon: To reduce the number Drained Blood Crystal needed to start the encounter, the health of the Blood Moon has been reduced to 1000 (down from 10,000).

Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel

Archimonde
- The duration of Nether Corruption has been reduced to 5 seconds so it doesn't persist across multiple portal phases on Raid Finder difficulty.

PvP
Mercenary Mode

Players should no longer receive a bonus objective to kill a tower guardian for the wrong faction, Rylai Crestfall (Alliance) or Jeron Emberfall (Horde) while fighting as a mercenary.

Achievements

Rescue Operation: Fixed an issue where players were unable to free captured prisoners.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that could prevent Monks from being able to use Zen Flight in areas where they were able to use other flying mounts.
[Requires a realm restart] Fixed an issue where the Swarming Insects debuff that prevents flight in The Feeding Pits in Townlong Steppes could persist incorrectly after leaving the area.
Fixed an issue that could cause characters to receive loot for the wrong class in Personal Loot mode on Mythic difficulty.

BlizzCon 2015 In-Game Goodies Round-Up

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)

Heading to BlizzCon 2015 or planning to watch online with the Virtual Ticket? Take a gander at the collection of epic in-game goodies you’ll get when you join us for the convention in person or at home.

World of Warcraft – Murkidan Pet
After consuming the shin bone of Gul'dan, this fiesty demon hunter was caged for 10,000 years by his brother Murkfurion. Now he’s ready to unleash his finfernal rage in pet battles across Azeroth!

Heroes of the Storm – Nexus Battle Beast Mount
Teams will tremble and Cores will crumble when you storm into combat astride the mighty Nexus Battle Beast!

Hearthstone – Blizzard 2015 Card Back
Hearthstone on phones, Tavern Brawls, Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and more—a very cool year, indeed.

StarCraft II – Portraits
Show off your status as a galactic BlizzConquerer with a pair of Legacy of the Void–themed portraits invoking the mysteries of the Xel’Naga and the power of the Spear of Adun.

Diablo III – BlizzCon Pennant, Pet, and Portrait
A trio of treasures awaits! Fly the colors of the BlizzCon crusade with an all-new pennant, and mrglgllglgll the demonic hordes with your Murkgoblin pet and portrait.*

This year’s epic collection of in-game goodies will be available to everyone who purchased a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket or who’s attending the show in person (just redeem the Digital Bonuses code you received when you purchased your tickets), and will be unlocked for use after BlizzCon begins. Head to the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket page to order or learn more!

*Windows/Mac version only

↧

Armory Stats - Brewfest Achievements, Blue Posts, Tweets, New Overwatch Heroes

September 23, 2015, 3:41 am

≫ Next: WoW - GoT Style Intro, Pet Battle Bonus Event, Tweets, WoW EU Arena Championship

≪ Previous: BlizzCon 2015 In-Game Goodies Round-Up

September 22nd Hotfixes, Hellfire Amulet and Bans, Future Ghost Changes

How Good is Master Jouster, Hearthstone Americas Qualifiers VoDs, Strength in Numbers

Shacknews Interview Round-Up, Shop Sales, Rotation for Sept. 22, 2015 and Rexxar Price

Meet the New Overwatch Heroes - Junkrat (Defense) & Roadhog (Tank)

Armory Stats - Brewfest Achievements
Today we are looking at the achievements you can earn from Brewfest. This data is from 2.1 million players active since August 1, 2015.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Name

Side

Points

DirebrewfestKill Coren Direbrew.

69.21%

Does Your Wolpertinger Linger?Obtain a Wolpertinger pet from the Brewfest quest line.

57.28%

Have Keg, Will TravelObtain a Brewfest mount, or transform yours into one using Brewfest Hops.

57.17%

Down With The Dark IronDefend the Brewfest camp from the Dark Iron attack and complete the quest, "This One Time, When I Was Drunk..."

55.44%

A Brew-FAST MountObtain an epic Brewfest mount.

42.77%

Brew of the MonthJoin the Brew of the Month club.

37.12%

BrewmasterComplete the Brewfest achievements listed below.

35.35%

Almost Blind LuckFall 65 yards without dying while wearing Synthebrew Goggles during the Brewfest Holiday.

34.28%

Brew of the YearSample 12 beers featured in the Brew of the Month club.

23.43%

Disturbing the PeaceWhile wearing 3 pieces of Brewfest clothing, get completely smashed and dance in Dalaran.

15.83%

Harvest Festival
Harvest Festival is back again and mostly unchanged from previous years. This year, the quests reward a stack of 3 of your choice of consumable items that give your character a ghostly color tint for an hour.

Level	Type	Name
1	Junk	Vengeful Spiritshard
1	Junk	Peaceful Spiritshard
1	Junk	Forlorn Spiritshard
1	Junk	Anxious Spiritshard

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Ashran Bug
Letting everyone know that we're aware of a potential issue where players already in an active Ashran battle may receive a second pop-up prompt asking if you'd want to join the Ashran battle. This second prompt is a bug and is being looked into. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Renewing Subscriptions in Greece
We wanted to let you know that we’re aware of the payment issues our players in Greece are currently facing. Certain banks are not processing international digital transactions for certain types of products, leaving many of you unable to pay for Blizzard games and services with credit cards or PayPal.

We’re carefully monitoring this situation, and we’d like to remind you of other payment options that are available to you. For World of Warcraft game time:

Pre-paid game cards should be available at local retailers like Plaisio, Public, Media Markt, Seven Spots, e-shop.gr, etc.
Those with in-game gold to spare can purchase 30 days of game time on the Auction House with the WoW Token

We’re also working with external partners and local retailers to bring Battle.net Gift Cards to Greece soon. These cards will provide you with an additional payment option by allowing you to charge up your Battle.net Balance in order to purchase items, including game time, in the Battle.net Shop. You can find more information here.(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Merc mode is awesome, but one flaw. Why are merced Alliance players allowed to whisper Alliance on the other team?
what did you like or dislike about it? (holinka)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Yea I find it really weird talking about that ex forever. Not only that but w.e you opinion on gets blamed on recent wow devs
I try to talk about the features I worked on and decisions I made. I don't have any context for recent stuff. (OccupyGStreet)
I know but there's ppl out there waiting to point out some cool thing you mention and turn it into a negative for blizz devs
I agree it is not cool to use my comments to try and leverage change on the current dev team. (OccupyGStreet)

Except the "alternative" is always substantially less rewarding, so it will never be cared about.
You can't just offer easy vs hard with the same rewards. Nobody will opt into hard "just because." (OccupyGStreet)

Overwatch - New Heroes: Junkrat and Roadhog
Two new heroes have been announced, and Overpwn has all of the details!

↧

WoW - GoT Style Intro, Pet Battle Bonus Event, Tweets, WoW EU Arena Championship

September 23, 2015, 11:08 pm

≫ Next: Armory Stats - Battle Pet Collection, Tweets, Poll, Overwatch Gameplay Video

≪ Previous: Armory Stats - Brewfest Achievements, Blue Posts, Tweets, New Overwatch Heroes

September 22nd Hotfixes, Hellfire Amulet and Bans, Future Ghost Changes

Underdog Rules Brawl, The Angry Chicken #104, CDC #33 Finalist Voting

Shacknews Interview Round-Up, Shop Sales, Rotation for Sept. 22, 2015 and Rexxar Price

World of Warcraft - Game of Thrones Style Intro
Marc Ottensmann released a Game of Thrones style intro for World of Warcraft.

Armory Stats - Level 25 Pet Achievement
Today we are taking a look at when players earned the All Growns Up! achievement. Keep in mind that only players active since August 1st were included in this data, so players that are inactive or quit long ago after leveling a pet to 25 are not represented.

You can see a nice increase in the number of players after the release of Patch 6.1, which added the Ultimate Battle-Training Stone for everyone with a Tier 3 garrison. If you haven't done it on alts already, be sure to do so as each character can get one! If you already have several Level 25 pets, you can get more stones with the bonus event going on now.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Pet Battle Bonus Event September 23-28

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Through Monday, September 28, Pet Battle experience gains are increased by +200%. It’s time to team up your mighty minions and test them on the field of battle!

Before you charge forth with your lower-level charges, make sure to pick up the quest “The Very Best”, lest you miss the chance to wrest an Ultimate Battle-Training Stone into your chest. All you need do is queue up for PvP Pet Battles with a team of three level-25 pets and obtain five wins before the event ends.

This time around, which three pets will you take into PvP Pet Battles? Let us know in the comments below.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

so what's the plan with Mage portals? With Dalaran being the capital again, that's going to be 3 different ports. Thanks.
Good question, we'll have to avoid confusion there. Ancient Tome is a bit of a special case, to be fair... (WatcherDev)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Grag, what was the most memoral moment in World of WarCraft for you?
In game either Wrathgate or opening the AQ gates. (OccupyGStreet)
Out of game probably addressing the crowd at China Joy. (OccupyGStreet)

Get Ready for the World of Warcraft European Championship

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

After some intense arena action in the 2015 World of Warcraft European Championship Qualifiers in August, eight teams have emerged victorious! They’ll continue their quest for glory at the European Road to BlizzCon in Prague, Czech Republic from October 3-4. Check out the details below.

Teams

Qualifier #1
1^st Place - Reawakened 1
2^nd Place - Solari Gaming Blue

Qualifier #2
1^st Place - Bleached Bones
2^nd Place - Solari Gaming
3^rd Place - Solari Gaming Black

Qualifier #3
1st Place – Solari Gaming Red
2nd Place – Reawakened 3

3rd Place – Three Languages One Team

Prizes
Teams in the European Championship will battle for a share of $100,000 USD in prize money—one of the biggest-ever prize pools for a European WoW event. The prize money will be distributed as follows:

Rank
Prize

1^st - 50,000$
2^nd - 20,000$
3^rd - 10,000$
4^th - 8,000$
5^th- 6^th - 4,000$ each
7^th- 8^th - 2,000$ each

The top three teams will also qualify for the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship at BlizzCon 2015, where they’ll face the best teams from across the globe!

The Event
The World of Warcraft European Championship is taking place at the 2015 European Road to BlizzCon in Prague’s O2 Arena. Don’t worry if you can’t be there in person—we’ll be bringing the adrenaline-charged action to you via live stream throughout the weekend. You won’t want to miss it!

For event and stream details, including the schedule, be sure to check out the official 2015 European Road to BlizzCon website at www.euRTB2015.com.

You can learn more about the World of Warcraft European Championship tournament in our 2015 European Road to BlizzCon blog, and by checking out the links below.

ESL World of Warcraft 2015 European Road to Blizzcon

ESL World of Warcraft 2015 European Road to Blizzcon - Frequently Asked Questions

MMO-Champion Forums Moderator Recruitment
Good news everyone! We're recruiting moderators for the forums again! The amount of users and posts keeps increasing and we reached the point where we need some help before the trolls take over and play Whack-a-Mod in the Darkmoon Faire. I know it sounds fun, but I'm going to assume we don't want that.

Please be sure to read the entire post before applying!

↧

Armory Stats - Battle Pet Collection, Tweets, Poll, Overwatch Gameplay Video

September 25, 2015, 9:46 am

≫ Next: Armory Stats - Pet Battles, Final Boss #97, Heroes - New Heroes: Medic and Artanis

≪ Previous: WoW - GoT Style Intro, Pet Battle Bonus Event, Tweets, WoW EU Arena Championship

Bountiful Bounties Event, UEE Bonuses and Hotfix

Deck Spotlight: The Silver Hand, House of Discards Card Design Competition, TwitchCon

Introducing the Medic - Lt. Morales, PTR Not Starting Today

Armory Stats - Battle Pet Collection
It Pet Battle Bonus Weekend, so we are starting by taking a look at the battle pet ownership achievement completion rate of players. Today's data is from 2.1 million players (not characters) that were active after August 1st.

You can see some of the same data to compare to last time we looked at pet battle stats, two years ago.

Keep in mind that the Safari achievements require you to collect every pet on that continent. The Raiding with Leashes achievements require collection of every pet that drops from different raid bosses. Crazy for Cats and Celestial Family require collecting specific pets.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Mythic Dungeons don't count as dungeons for guild challenges while in a guild group? Intended?
Not ideal, but a consequence of how the system was originally built. Challenges require queued dungeon activities (LFG) only. (WarcraftDevs)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Except the "alternative" is always substantially less rewarding, so it will never be cared about. You can't just offer easy vs hard with the same rewards. Nobody will opt into hard "just because".

How can you be so sure? I always choose the hardest difficulty without knowing if I'll get better rewards
The comment was specifically about group PvE content. If you offer 5 difficulty levels, all with the same rewards, and don't provide easy ways for other players to see others' accomplishments, then my experience is most players will see no point in suffering through the harder difficulties. Some will, but my expectation is that group will be small. In general, if players do more challenging content, they expect rewards appropriate for their accomplishment. Those rewards could be power based rewards, or they could just be recognition from other players.

This doesn't mean players don't like difficult content. I like difficult content. But generally in multiplayer games, players want some recognition or outright rewards that they did it the hard way. I think the mindset is just different in single player games. I play Dark Souls because I gain satisfaction over beating it. It's harder to lean on personal satisfaction in a multiplayer game where players spend a lot of brain space comparing their accomplishments to others. In multiplayer games, the social element is typically pretty massive or it wouldn't be a multiplayer game. Recognition, in my experience, is an important part of that social element.

Poll - How Many Battle Pets Do You Have?
Please vote with the number of unique pets you have. You can get a fairly accurate count by checking the pets section of your armory profile.

How many unique pets do you have?

Overwatch - Gameplay Footage
Some more Overwatch gameplay video has been released, this time by a player that was able to visit Blizzard and play.

↧

Armory Stats - Pet Battles, Final Boss #97, Heroes - New Heroes: Medic and Artanis

September 26, 2015, 1:46 pm

≫ Next: Armory Stats - Pet Battles, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, Heroes PTR Updates

≪ Previous: Armory Stats - Battle Pet Collection, Tweets, Poll, Overwatch Gameplay Video

Disabled Bounties Hotfix, Cache Farming Builds, Bounties DH Guide

Deck Spotlight: The Silver Hand, House of Discards Card Design Competition, TwitchCon

Heroes of the Storm Medic & Artanis PTR Patch - Hero Changes & More

Armory Stats - Pet Battles
It's Pet Battle Bonus Weekend, and we are continuing the pet battle related posts by taking a look at the pet battle achievement completion rate of players. Today's data is from 2.1 million players (not characters) that were active after August 1st.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Poll - PvP Pet Battles
It seems that PvP pet battles aren't very popular among the general population. Do you take part in them? If not, why?

Do you do PvP Pet Battles?

Final Boss #97 - Strength Melee
This week Final Boss covered Retribution Paladin, Warrior and Death Knight specs!

Heroes of the Storm PTR Build - Medic, Artanis, and More!
A new build went on the Heroes PTR server, adding two new heroes and other changes. You can find all of the details at HeroesNexus.

↧

Armory Stats - Pet Battles, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, Heroes PTR Updates

September 27, 2015, 3:52 pm

≫ Next: Wildstar - Free to Play Live, GW2 - Heart of Thorns Trailer, Tweets, DLC #506

≪ Previous: Armory Stats - Pet Battles, Final Boss #97, Heroes - New Heroes: Medic and Artanis

Fan Creation - Necromancer

Popular Constructed Decks of the Week, The Worst Arena Cards Ever

Heroes of the Storm Medic & Artanis PTR Patch - Hero Changes & More

Armory Stats - Battle Pet Leveling and Achievement Points
It's still Pet Battle Bonus Weekend, and we are concluding the pet battle related posts by taking a look at the remaining battle pet achievements. Today's data is from 2.1 million players (not characters) that were active after August 1st.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Blue Tweets - Developer Communication

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

How many game designers have been fired via online petition? Asking for a friend.(holinka)
Hmm maybe you know @OccupyGStreet? (holinka)
#AndThatsHowRumourStarts
Ha ha, no I just mean he had many of these silly petitions in his time. Just pointing out we've seen this before. (holinka)
The more likely outcome is your boss says "Keep doing what you're doing, but stop talking to players because it's controversial."(OccupyGStreet)
Yep, ties into that "why game devs don't communicate with players" article you linked previously. (Celestalon)
I don't think this particular group cares about communication. They are unhappy and want corrective action. (holinka)
They are operating under the false belief that I am standing in the way of them getting what they want. (holinka)

Can't punish communication to all players due to a horrible few.
Our team's strategy is to communicate through @WarcraftDevs & not our personal accounts. That's fine. (holinka)

Jay Wilson
Ha! I know for a fact that isn't true. (holinka)
I know, but I still think he was majorly unfairly crucified in the community. They also seem to take 'credit' for him leaving.
Yes certainly unfortunate. He is like a design buddha. Kind and helpful to everyone he meets. (holinka)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

With an MMO, not necessarily WoW mind, how important should micro vs macro customization be? Are big choices more fun?
Typically you don't get to make the big choices very often so having the "tweaky" little ones can feel satisfying IMO. (OccupyGStreet)

is it a lost cause to try to get players to express right feedback versus the wrong type of feedback?
I find it cumbersome to give players too many rule about how they can provide feedback. (OccupyGStreet)
If you can get them to consider how their feedback will be viewed (oh this guy is just ranting) that can focus their point. (OccupyGStreet)

Computers - Setup of the Month
Each month or so we will post a couple of hardware setups for those of you who are thinking of upgrading their computer!

This month
The current SSD prices are fairly flat right now, with most SSDs under $0.50 per gigabyte when on sale.

New CPUs from Intel and GPUs from AMD are here, but they aren't huge improvements over the previous generation.

Depending on how much you want to overclock, you may need to spend a bit more for a better CPU cooler like the NH-D14.

Unless you are doing a lot of video rendering or streaming, you do not need the 6700K and should spend that money elsewhere.

Make sure to keep your AMD and Nvidia drivers up to date.

Don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions!

Peripherals/Monitors

Component	Puppy	Dolphin
Monitor	ASUS VS228H-P 22-Inch Monitor - $115	ASUS VS248H-P 24-Inch Monitor - $140
Keyboard	Kensington Pro Fit Media Keyboard - $22	Cyborg V.5 - $58
Mouse	Logitech G402 - $50	Razer DeathAdder - $53
Speakers	Creative A250 2.1 Speaker System - $30	Logitech Z313 Speaker System - $32
Component	Narwhal	Unicorn
Monitor	Dell P2414H Monitor - $200	Dell U2412M - $263
Keyboard	Logitech G510s - $77	Corsair Vengeance K70 - $123
Mouse	Logitech G502 - $58	Razer Naga 2014 - $70
Speakers	Logitech Z323 2.1 Speaker System - $50	Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $86

Puppy and Dolphin
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Puppy and Dolphin.

Component	Puppy	Dolphin
Case	NZXT Source 210 - $48	NZXT Source 210 - $48
Power Supply	EVGA 600B - $63	EVGA 600B - $63
CPU	AMD FX-6300 - $100	AMD FX-8320 - $140
Heatsink	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $31	Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - $31
Motherboard	ASUS M5A97 R2.0 - $94	ASUS M5A99FX PRO - $104
Memory	Kingston HyperX FURY 8GB 1866 - $44	8GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 - $54
Graphics Card	MSI R7 260X - $130	R9 270X / GTX 960 - $200 / $171
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB - $36	Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - $82
DVD	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total	$567	$714 - 743

Narwhal and Unicorn
All of these parts can be mixed and matched to create a build between Narwhal and Unicorn.

Component	Narwhal	Unicorn
Case	Cooler Master HAF 912 - $66	Corsair Air 540 - $137
Power Supply	EVGA G2 650W - $100	EVGA G2 650W - $100
CPU	Intel 6600K - $275	Intel 6600K - $275
Heatsink	Scythe Mugen 4 - $52	Noctua 6 NH-D14 - $76
Motherboard	ASUS Z170-A - $164	ASUS Z170-A - $164
Memory	8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 - $50	16GB Kingston HyperX FURY DDR4 2133 - $116
Graphics Card	Gigabyte R9 380 - $230	Gigabyte R9 390ORASUS GTX 970 - $310 / $320
Hard Drive	Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black - $116	Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black - $116
SSD	Crucial BX100 250GB (Review) - $85 OR SAMSUNG 850 EVO 250GB (Review) - $89	SanDisk Extreme PRO 240GB (Review) - $120 OR SAMSUNG 850 Pro 256GB (Review) - $133
DVD	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21	Asus 24X SATA DVD+/-RW - $21
Total	$1159 - 1207	$1400 - 1458

Heroes of the Storm PTR - New Skins, Mounts, and Animations
More goodies from the PTR today, with new skins and mounts previewed, along with the new and upgraded animations.

↧

Wildstar - Free to Play Live, GW2 - Heart of Thorns Trailer, Tweets, DLC #506

September 28, 2015, 9:37 pm

≫ Next: Burning Crusade Timewalking Event, Hearthstone Patch 3.1, Artanis Abilities, Tweets

≪ Previous: Armory Stats - Pet Battles, Blue Tweets, Setup of the Month, Heroes PTR Updates

Fan Made Necromancer, Quin's Ranking Clears, Double Generator Monk Builds

Popular Constructed Decks of the Week, The Worst Arena Cards Ever

Heroes of the Storm Medic & Artanis PTR Patch - Hero Changes & More

Wildstar - Free to Play Live
Earlier this year, Carbine announced that Wildstar was moving to a free to play model. That day is finally here! You can find out more about the Free to Play transition or grab the new smaller client and some addons. The Wildstar subreddit also has some helpful links.

Guild Wars 2 - Heart of Thorns Trailer
The first Guild Wars 2 expansion is only a few weeks away and ArenaNet recently published the launch trailer. Don't forget that they also made the base game free to play with some restrictions recently as well. Guild week starts on Tuesday, with information on the new guild features coming in Heart of Thorns.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

If you're in Ashran, we think it's okay to bring 4 friends along with you. But bringing 39 creates an unfair environment. (holinka)
Certainly happy that new communities have sprung up and new friendships have been formed. But not at the expense of fairplay. (holinka)
Unfortunately, a few people have circumvented those restrictions and we've had to create additional measures. (holinka)
I am not sure I understand. So working together as a team is frowned upon in an MMO?
Seems like you're twisting my words. (holinka)

Why no just remove the (Ashran) debuff from the game? take less code hrs, Please?
We think it's important that all players that enter Ashran have an equal opportunity to compete. (holinka)
idk if you've been to ashran but they all seem extremely one sided, mostly in favor of alliance
I receive an equal number of "Horde always wins" and "Alliance always wins" complaints. (holinka)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

which is sad. Player insight into the the why's of development is great, makes the decisions feel less arbitrary
Exactly. So maybe let's give up on the whole petition to get someone fired strategy. (Autocorrect said "furred" lol.) (OccupyGStreet)

If you aren’t controversial, either you’re a puppet or you do nothing important.
That may be the case, but some companies view social media as a distraction, so being controversial is a net loss. (OccupyGStreet)

DLC #506 - Demon Hunter
DLC #506 takes a look at the new class coming in Legion, Demon Hunters!

↧

Burning Crusade Timewalking Event, Hearthstone Patch 3.1, Artanis Abilities, Tweets

September 29, 2015, 11:10 pm

≫ Next: September 30 Hotfixes - HFC Changes, In-Game Shop Expands, This Month in WoW

≪ Previous: Wildstar - Free to Play Live, GW2 - Heart of Thorns Trailer, Tweets, DLC #506

Blizzard Games on Sale, New ATI Drivers for D3, How to Cow Level

The Mech War Tavern Brawl - New Hearthstone Patch

Artanis' Abilities Preview, Town Hall Heroes #79, Epic Plays #48, WTF Moments #17

Burning Crusade Timewalking Event
The Burning Crusade Timewalking event starts today! You can purchase rewards from Cupri in the center of Shattrath.

Mounts - The Reins of the Eclipse Dragonhawk and Bridle of the Ironbound Wraithcharger cost 5,000 Timewarped Badge.
Heirloom Upgrades - You can purchase the heirloom upgrade items for 750 / 1000 badges (Armor) and 900 / 1200 badges (Weapon)
Armor and Weapons - Timewarped Badge gear is item level 675 and uses the same models as some Burning Crusade gear.
Reputation Commendations - These BoA items grant 500 Reputation with some of the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King factions.
Pets - The Bag of Fishing Treasures can contain several different crocodile pets. You can also obtain this bag by completing the Crocolisks in the City daily quest.
Cooking - The Barrel of Fish and Crate of Meat can contain some older Cooking recipes.

Level	Type	Slot	Spec	Name	Cost
80	Mount			Bridle of the Ironbound Wraithcharger	5000 ×
70	Mount			Reins of the Eclipse Dragonhawk	5000 ×

Level	Type	Name	Cost
90	Consumable	Ancient Heirloom Armor Casing	750 ×
90	Consumable	Ancient Heirloom Scabbard	900 ×
100	Consumable	Timeworn Heirloom Armor Casing	1000 ×
100	Consumable	Timeworn Heirloom Scabbard	1200 ×

Level	Type	Name	Cost
1	Quest	Commendation of the Kirin Tor	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Ebon Blade	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Argent Crusade	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Sons of Hodir	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Wyrmrest Accord	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of The Consortium	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of The Sha'tar	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of Thrallmar	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of Honor Hold	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Cenarion Expedition	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Keepers of Time	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of Lower City	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Horde Expedition	50 ×
1	Quest	Commendation of the Alliance Vanguard	50 ×

Level	Type	Slot	Spec	Name	Cost
226	Neck	Neck		Shard of the Crystal Forest	25 ×
213	Finger	Finger		Signet of the Impregnable Fortress	25 ×
200	Trinket	Trinket		Sundial of the Exiled	35 ×
200	Trinket	Trinket		Valor Medal of the First War	35 ×
200	Trinket	Trinket		Mirror of Truth	35 ×
245	Trinket	Trinket		Mark of Supremacy	35 ×
110	Trinket	Trinket		Emblem of Fury	35 ×
110	Trinket	Trinket		Icon of the Silver Crescent	35 ×
110	Trinket	Trinket		Bloodlust Brooch	35 ×
226	Neck	Neck	All Strength	Spiked Battleguard Choker	25 ×
245	Finger	Finger	All Strength	Bloodshed Band	25 ×
110	Trinket	Trinket	All Strength	Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 601	35 ×
226	Neck	Neck	Healer	Frozen Tear of Elune	25 ×
213	Finger	Finger	Healer	Renewal of Life	25 ×
226	Neck	Neck	All Agility	Broach of the Wailing Night	25 ×
213	Finger	Finger	All Agility	Ring of Invincibility	25 ×
226	Neck	Neck	All Intellect	Evoker's Charm	25 ×
213	Finger	Finger	All Intellect	Band of Channeled Magic	25 ×
200	Trinket	Trinket	All Intellect	The Egg of Mortal Essence	35 ×
110	Trinket	Trinket	All Intellect	Essence of the Martyr	35 ×
110	Off Hand	Off Hand	All Intellect	Talisman of Kalecgos	25 ×
110	Back	Back		Farstrider Defender's Cloak	50 ×
136	Back	Back	All Strength	Dory's Embrace	50 ×
110	Back	Back	Healer	Bishop's Cloak	50 ×
110	Back	Back	All Agility	Blood Knight War Cloak	50 ×
110	Cloth	Head	All Intellect	Cowl of Naaru Blessings	35 ×
264	Cloth	Chest	All Intellect	Meteor Chaser's Raiment	25 ×
128	Cloth	Waist	All Intellect	Voodoo-Woven Belt	35 ×
141	Cloth	Legs	All Intellect	Corrupted Soulcloth Pantaloons	25 ×
213	Cloth	Feet	All Intellect	Xintor's Expeditionary Boots	25 ×
264	Cloth	Hands	All Intellect	Gloves of False Gestures	25 ×
110	Back	Back	All Intellect	Shawl of Shifting Probabilities	50 ×
110	Leather	Head		Mask of the Deceiver	35 ×
264	Leather	Chest		Shadow Seeker's Tunic	25 ×
141	Leather	Waist		Belt of the Silent Path	35 ×
141	Leather	Legs		Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer	25 ×
213	Leather	Feet		Boots of Captain Ellis	25 ×
264	Leather	Hands		Cat Burglar's Grips	25 ×
110	Mail	Head		Storm Master's Helmet	35 ×
264	Mail	Chest		Longstrider's Vest	25 ×
141	Mail	Waist		Aftershock Waistguard	35 ×
141	Mail	Legs		Rushing Storm Kilt	25 ×
213	Mail	Feet		Pack-Ice Striders	25 ×
264	Mail	Hands		Logsplitters	25 ×
110	Plate	Head		Faceguard of Determination	35 ×
264	Plate	Chest		Castle Breaker's Battleplate	25 ×
141	Plate	Waist		Girdle of Seething Rage	35 ×
141	Plate	Legs		Legplates of Unending Fury	25 ×
213	Plate	Feet		Kyzoc's Ground Stompers	25 ×
264	Plate	Hands		Gauntlets of the Kraken	25 ×
110	Shield	Off Hand	All Strength	Azure-Shield of Coldarra	25 ×
110	Shield	Off Hand	All Intellect	Mazthoril Honor Shield	25 ×
146	Two-handed Axe	Two Hand	All Strength	The Blade of Harbingers	100 ×
146	One-handed Mace	One Hand	All Intellect	Gavel of Naaru Blessings	35 ×
115	One-handed Sword	One Hand	All Strength	Sword of Unyielding Force	35 ×
146	Staff	Two Hand	All Agility	Staff of the Forest Lord	100 ×
141	Staff	Two Hand	All Intellect	Staff of the Soul-Eater	100 ×
146	Fist Weapon	One Hand	All Agility	Vanir's Fist of Brutality	35 ×
146	Dagger	One Hand	All Agility	The Mutilator	35 ×
146	Dagger	One Hand	All Intellect	Scryer's Blade of Focus	35 ×
146	Crossbow	Ranged	All Agility	Crossbow of Relentless Strikes	100 ×

Level	Type	Name	Cost
65	Junk	Barrel of Fish	25 ×
1	Junk	Crate of Meat	25 ×
70	Junk	Bag of Fishing Treasures	150 ×
70	Junk	Mark of the Ashtongue	1250 ×
1	Holiday	Timeless Mirror	500 ×

Hearthstone - Patch 3.1.0
A new Hearthstone patch appeared today, with a new tavern brawl, new card animations, and new animated card backs.

Heroes of the Storm - Artanis Abilities Preview
Heroes Nexus has a nice overview of the new abilities!

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

so, that shipyard: does running more missions cycle through to "better" missions faster, or is it all random?
They are random for each general location, and running missions clears up space for additional missions to appear. (WarcraftDevs)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Do you get invited to Blizzcon? Also, it would be epic if you walked on stage, said "Hello"& walked off. Worst Question ever
I'm going to pass. I don't think there is a way I can go and not appear to be grandstanding. (OccupyGStreet)

You can't just offer easy vs hard with the same rewards. Nobody will opt into hard "just because." (OccupyGStreet)
absolutely disagree. no reward for speedrunners. also see Demon Souls. some ppl just like hard
The issue isn't Souls (which I adore). It's whether a raid group will opt into a harder difficulty for the same reward. (OccupyGStreet)
that's why I mentioned speedrunning. There is a social motivation to it that shouldn't be ignored.
I suspect that population is small, but it might not be small if there was a way to recognize your accomplishments. (OccupyGStreet)

How did you draw the line for clever use of game mechanics vs exploit?
If the thing harms others, makes a challenge much too easy, or stomps on more fun ways to solve the problem, it's an exploit. (OccupyGStreet)
Obviously there are no hard and fast rules for this sort of thing. It often depends on the context and situation. (OccupyGStreet)

Greg, what was the most memorable moment in World of Warcraft for you NOT in-game?
Being on stage in Shanghai for the first time. (The panda dancers in Taipei was also um memorable.) (OccupyGStreet)

↧

September 30 Hotfixes - HFC Changes, In-Game Shop Expands, This Month in WoW

September 30, 2015, 10:18 pm

≫ Next: October 1 Hotfixes, EU Road to BlizzCon This Weekend, Tweets, Fan Art

≪ Previous: Burning Crusade Timewalking Event, Hearthstone Patch 3.1, Artanis Abilities, Tweets

Blizzard Games on Sale, New ATI Drivers for D3, How to Cow Level

October Card Back - Highmaulin' and Brawlin' Ogres

No Medic Changes Planned, All Fountains Shall Burn, C9 Skin Sales, Rotation and More!

Patch 6.2.2a Hotfixes - Sep 30

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Brewfest

Added the ability to sell a number of Brewfest items back to the Brewfest vendor that could not be sold back previously.

Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel

Note that the following tuning changes to Hellfire Citadel are currently live for the EU and Asia regions. Other regions will require a realm restart for the changes to take effect.
Kilrogg Deadeye
- Kilrogg Deadeye's Heart Seeker now deals damage and spawns globules only against the target of the ability on Normal Difficulty.
- Significantly reduced the health of Blood Globule and Fel Blood Globule on Normal Difficulty.
Hellfire High Council
- Reduced the damage of Dia Darkwhisper's Wailing Horrors by 30% on Normal difficulty.
Gorefiend
- Gorefiend no longer uses Shared Fate on Normal or Raid Finder difficulty.
- Gorebound Construct's Hunger for Life now only affects the fixated target on Normal difficulty.
Tyrant Velhari
- Aura of Oppression in stage one and Aura of Contempt in stage two of the encounter now increases its effect over time more slowly on Normal difficulty.
Xhul'horac
- Wild Pyromaniac's Fel Orb no longer creates patches of Chaotic Felblaze if it fails to impact a player on Normal and Raid Finder difficulty.
- Unstable Voidfiend's Volatile Voidstep no longer spreads Creeping Void if the explosion contacts any players on Normal and Raid Finder difficulty.
Archimonde
- Archimonde no longer uses Wrought Chaos on Normal or Raid Finder difficulty.
- Nether Portals created by Nether Banish no longer summon Living Shadows on Normal or Raid Finder difficulty.

PvP
Ashran

Ancient Artifact now increases maximum health by 25% (down from 100%).

Mercenary Mode

Fixed an issue where Druids could incorrectly retain shapeshifted visuals for the opposite faction upon leaving a Battleground match.

Items

Fragment of the Dark Star should now only trigger its effects in combat.

Hellfire Citadel Changes

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Seems fine really, target audience for Normal will appreciate the changes and the world keeps turning. It's probably a fine line between tweaking numbers so that the mechanics don't feel threatening and then wondering "well, if no one cares about them anyway - why have them". Difficult problem.
We certainly haven't consistently been successful in doing this, but as we reflect on how Normal difficulty has turned out, we'd rather remove mechanics from Normal difficulty entirely than leave them in but make them so non-threatening that they can be ignored entirely. The latter approach hurts clarity, because you look at an encounter and see 3 or 4 mechanics, but there may actually only be 1 or 2 that you truly need to worry about.

Removing mechanics from Normal also means that, in effect, going from Normal to Heroic now introduces some additional mechanics, just as going from Heroic to Mythic always has. That adds some additional depth to the experience of learning a boss on a higher difficulty, rather than just having the same encounter with larger numbers.

It might be better if the difficulty and complexity gap between Normal and Heroic were comparable to the gap between Heroic and Mythic, and that hasn't been the case.

Who is the target audience for Normal? I thought it was friends and family groups? Has it now changed to pugs with minimal co ordination and no voice comms?
It's been a while now, but when we first elaborated on the Warlords raiding structure last year, we tried to spell out the target audiences. Raiding Azeroth: Part 2 and the associated blogs go into a ton of depth if you have too much time on your hands and want to read thousands of words rambling about raid design. But the most relevant part was this:

In broad strokes, there are three distinct types of groups that participate in organized raiding:
Friends and Family groups: These are social groups that exist for reasons besides raiding, but whose players would like to venture into raid content together. This type of group is inherently inclusive, and will not organize its roster according to specific class needs, nor is the group likely to criticize or remove players based on performance. Members of this type of group prioritize playing together.
Raiding guilds: These are groups that have formed for the purpose of raiding. These are the majority of guilds that you’ll see recruiting in Trade chat or on realm forums. These groups will generally look for specific classes based on roster needs, and will expect a certain level of attendance or performance. Members of this type of group prioritize experiencing and learning the content.
Hardcore raiding guilds: An extreme subset of the previous category, these are the guilds of players whose ethos drives them to be the best at games they play, and who are willing to dedicate time and energy to maximize their results. Guilds of this type will recruit and maintain a roster based primarily on performance, and will expect raiders to optimize their characters. Members of this type of group prioritize competition and success.

I'd say that those three categories largely match with Normal, Heroic, and Mythic raiding respectively. In a lot of ways, many pickup groups trend closer to the Heroic sphere of content, simply because they are selective, and generally will not hesitate to replace someone whose throughput is significantly below par or who is screwing up mechanics. A friends-and-family group will generally not kick out their friend or family member because they stand in the fire a lot. That's sort of the point.

In-Game Shop Expands - Appearance, Faction, Name, and Race Changes

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The in-game Shop has expanded to provide access to select paid character services, including Appearance, Faction, Name, and Race Changes*—all right from the comfort of the character-selection screen. Now you can change your allegiance, alter your identity, or make your character over to transform them into a better . . . them.

Appearance Change—Change your character’s appearance, including their gender, face, skin color, hair color, hair style, and name as desired. Learn more about eligibility and restrictions for this service here.
Faction Change—Switch your allegiance from Horde to Alliance or Alliance to Horde. Learn more about eligibility and restrictions for this service https://us.battle.net/support/en/art...nd-limitations.
Name Change—Change your character’s name to something a bit more them (or you). Learn more about eligibility and restrictions for this service here.
Race Change—Change your race to one within your same faction. Learn more about eligibility and restrictions for this service here.

*Please note that these services are not available for purchase within the Shop while logged in to a character in the game. To access them, you’ll need to log out to the character-selection screen.

This Month in WoW – October 2015

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

October is the month of festivals! This year, we’re spending the month celebrating brew, tricky treats, and PvP as we zero in on BlizzCon 2015. Make your October plans now. It’ll be over before you know it!

In-Game Events

Brewfest [September 20-October 6]
Brewfest is a time to enjoy the fermented fruits of the harvest: pretzels, cheese, and brew! The competing breweries Thunderbrew, Barleybrew, and the Ogres, all come together outside of all the major cities in a bid to outdo each other with their special ales, meads, and beers. Brave adventurers are invited to sit back, take a pull, and sample the finest wares these brewers have to offer!

Brewfest is your only chance to acquire the Swift Brewfest Ram and Great Brewfest Kodo mounts, as well as the Wolpertinger and Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm pets. It’s also your chance to get your brew-covered mitts on a few new items: the Stout Alemental pet, the Steamworks Sausage Grill, and Brewfest Banner toys!

Darkmoon Faire Returns [October 4-11]

The wondrous and mystical Darkmoon Faire returns to Azeroth on October 4, and if you haven’t completed all of Silas Darkmoon’s new Darkmoon Races, now’s the time! Test your speed and agility on a variety of racing mounts as you dodge electrifying obstacles and zip all over Darkmoon Island for rewards and achievements. You may also want to take a few moments to be a kid again by going for a ride on the new Darkmoon Seesaw.

The faire continues to be one of the best ways to acquire heirloom gear, and don’t forget all of the toys, mounts, and pets that can only be gotten here. Bash some gnolls!

Hallow’s End [October 18 – November 1]
Hallow's End is a celebration of the break between the Forsaken and the Scourge. Many tricks and treats await adventurers seeking holiday fun, including defeating the Headless Horseman, visiting inns and cities for fun items such as masks and costumes, and eating way too much candy in one sitting.

You’ll find a special Hallow’s End Wickerman set up and ready to burn in Stormwind and near the Undercity in the Ruins of Lordaeron. Every four hours, Genn Greymane and Lady Sylvanas will arrive to light each faction’s respective Wickerman in celebration of Hallow’s End. Of course, it wouldn’t be Hallow’s End without a little mischief.

Upcoming World of Warcraft Tournaments

Road to BlizzCon: WoW European Championship
BlizzCon is only a few weeks away and teams are vying for a chance to make it to the finals. Don’t miss the WoW European Championship, taking place at the 2015 European Road to BlizzCon in Prague’s O2 Arena on October 3-4. Don’t worry if you can’t be there in person—we’ll be bringing the adrenaline-charged action to you via live stream throughout the weekend.

For event and stream details, including the schedule, be sure to check out the official 2015 European Road to BlizzCon website at www.euRTB2015.com.

ESL WoW (EU)
The Electronic Sports League continues to bring the weekend WoW action on:

Saturday, October 17 at 18:00 CEST (9:00 a.m. PDT)

For more information, head over to the ESL news site, and don’t forget to follow ESL on Twitch and Twitter.

Bonus Events

September 30 – October 5: Burning Crusade Timewalking Dungeon Bonus Event
October 7 – October 12: Apexis Bonus Event
October 14 – October 19: Arena Skirmish Bonus Event
October 21 – October 26: Northrend Timewalking Dungeons Bonus Event
October 28 – November 2: Battlegrounds Bonus Event

↧

October 1 Hotfixes, EU Road to BlizzCon This Weekend, Tweets, Fan Art

October 2, 2015, 4:22 am

≫ Next: Warcraft III Fan Remake Update, Tweets, SWTOR Level Sync, Poll, New Wildstar Realms

≪ Previous: September 30 Hotfixes - HFC Changes, In-Game Shop Expands, This Month in WoW

Holyknight3000 Wallpapers, Rank #1 4-Man GR 82

HearthPwn Goes Mobile Friendly, Deck Spotlight: Mech Warrior, Not-So-Secret, TAC #105

Test Map, Reworked Skins and Animations v2, Matthew Cooper Interview, Hottest Plays #48

Patch 6.2.2a Hotfixes - October 1

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel

Fel Lord Zakuun
- [Requires a realm restart] Cloven Soul should now always be applied to the target with the highest threat that is currently tanking Fel Lord Zakuun.

Collections
Toy Box

Mark of the Ashtongue is now usable while in combat and the cosmetic transformation no longer breaks in combat.

Items

Fixed an issue that could cause naval equipment to incorrectly display as red on the naval equipment vendor, (but is still purchasable) when the item in question has been unlocked for the character.

European Road to BlizzCon this Weekend

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The 2015 European Road to BlizzCon gets underway in Prague, Czech Republic this weekend, October 3-4, and it’s going to be epic! If you’re an eSports fan, you won’t want to miss the Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and World of Warcraft European Championships being held at the event. Some of the best players in the world will be battling it out for a share of the $300,000 USD prize pool, as well as a coveted place in the World Championships at BlizzCon this November!

The Heroes of the Storm action begins earlier, when the group matches are played on Friday, October 2 from 12:00-22:00 CEST. On Saturday, crowds will pack the O2 Arena as the main event kicks off and the excitement truly begins. Tune in from 12:00-23:40 CEST to follow the Heroes group decider matches and semi-finals, and the Hearthstone and World of Warcraft group matches and semi-finals. All three grand finals will be played in front of a captivated audience on Sunday from 12:00-19:45 CEST—you won’t want to miss them!

StarCraft II fans will also want to check out the Legacy of the Void show matches! Catch Milenium vs. Team Liquid from 17:50-18:50 CEST on Saturday.

Stream
For event and stream details, including the schedule, be sure to check out the official 2015 European Road to BlizzCon website at www.euRTB2015.com. And if you're heading to Prague this weekend, be sure to check out all the exciting activities we've got lined up!

Remember that if you watch the Heroes of the Storm Road to BlizzCon live stream using a Twitch account linked to your Battle.net account, you can also unlock a sweet in-game “Storm Watcher” portrait.

It’s going to be an adrenaline-charged weekend, so find a comfortable seat and get hyped!

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

can u confirm how many guidlies need to be in a raid for it to count as a "guild group"? thanks
For a raid group, 80% (rounded down) of the group must be from the same guild. Minimap icon will confirm if you qualify. (WarcraftDevs)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

can you list the projects you personally worked on so we can lay to rest whether this post employment praise is warranted?
I don't think that would lay anything to rest. (OccupyGStreet)
The truth is that nobody works on projects in a vacuum at Blizzard or Riot. (OccupyGStreet)
Nobody changes philosophy on their own. Those are all directions that the team is aligned around. (OccupyGStreet)
It is why I always caution players not to vilify (or deify) individual developers. That's just not the way game dev works. (OccupyGStreet)
If you don't like a feature or a philosophy by all means speak out. But blame the studio not those few whose names you know. (OccupyGStreet)

Community Spotlight: SulaMoon

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

This week, we turn our attention to the wondrous art of SulaMoon, who recently answered our questions about her creative process and what inspires her work.

Q: What influences your designs?
This whole [Warcraft] series started because Cataclysm was such a cool looking spell that I just had to paint it. Casting it while glyphed in demon form, with horns and wings? Heck yeah! So I started sketching.

Pretty soon I had the idea to see if I could fit my character and my friend's character into a series, making them into Hearthstone-style illustrations. The first one was my demon warlock, followed by my husband's retribution paladin. The priest is the leader of the guild, and a dear friend, so it was a gift for her.

My idea is was to make their characters, favorite transmog set, and favorite spec all into one recognizable image. Raiding with them has been an awesome experience, so cheers! That’s also why they’re only Horde characters.

Q: How long does it take to create images like these?
I worked on this on my off-time, so I slip in a couple of minutes every chance I get. If I'd add it all up, it would be around 15 hours per piece.

I start with a rough sketch for pose and composition—the overall posture of the piece. Once that’s working, I move into adding the details to the sketch—where I'll collect references for armor, weapons, and spell effects—and add them over the initial sketch. A couple of times something breaks and I need to reorganize the whole sketch. I then do a grayscale pass to make sure the light will read and start working on volumes, and then I can move into color. There’s a lot of polishing and making sure the materials read as they should.

This is also the time where I’ll take some liberties with the original set, and imagine how they would work if there weren’t in-game technical restrictions. I particularly like painting shiny trinkets, so a lot of time is spent on highlights and sparkling effects.

Q: What other works inspire you?
In the illustration world, Joe Madureira—his comic art but specially his work on Darksiders—and Brom is also a huge one for me, and so is Drew Struzan! I also like Todd Lockwood, Dan dos Santos, and especially Wei Wang. He is amazing. I'm also a movie fan—I love watching and studying movies and their visual languages so I can capture a little bit of their magic when I paint. Also, soundtracks—glorious, epic soundtracks by Hans Zimmer. I also play pen and paper RPGs. I really love this stuff, and I think the reason I’m an artist nowadays it's because I’m a fan of things like these. They’re what pushes me forwards and makes me aim for greater things.

Q: And what about video games for inspiration?
I love raiding. I’ve tried it hardcore, I’ve tried it casual, and I enjoy it more than I can socially admit. I had to step down from hardcore to a bit more casual playstyle so I could work on my art too. It was weird at the time, but now that I have found a guild I can call home I am in comfortable position to keep both going.

I also love the lore in the game, and I have a couple of friends I can geek out with about the lore until my heart is content. And of course, I love the art in Warcraft—in-game, comics, and I can't wait for the movie! The heaviness of the style, the details, the scenery, the races. The community is also amazing, and I have made many friends inside the game over all the years playing.

Q: If you could add one thing to the game, artistically, what would it be?
Customizable horns! Yes! But wait, this one is already promised. So how about Dreadsteeds that fly with a blazing trail of fire in the skies!
Another great thing would be more detailed armor, in the chest area especially. I love the work being done over with models in Heroes of the Storm, and I'd love to see something similar in WoW too!

Our thanks goes out to SulaMoon for sharing these lovely pieces with the WoW community.

Heroes of the Storm - Respawn Timer Increases and Snowball Prevention
The Heroes PTR got increased respawn times and smaller stat differences between levels at lower levels to try and make games more even if a team falls a little behind early on.

↧

Warcraft III Fan Remake Update, Tweets, SWTOR Level Sync, Poll, New Wildstar Realms

October 3, 2015, 10:43 am

≫ Next: Blizzcon - Engineering Panel, Item Hotfixes, Tweets, DLC #507

≪ Previous: October 1 Hotfixes, EU Road to BlizzCon This Weekend, Tweets, Fan Art

Pig Sticker Inspired Knife, Bane of the Stricken Guide

Deck Spotlight: Silence Druid, European Road to BlizzCon Championships this Weekend

European and Korean Road to Blizzcon, Brawl With the Blues, Americas Recap, ITN #69

Warcraft III Fan Remake Update
It has been six months since their last video release, but the fan made WarCraft: Armies Of Azeroth mod for Starcraft II is still making progress!

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Is this still a thing that will happen or is planned? http://t.co/qUYPAFlmIB
yes! That happened it's in game now - if you scroll through the different face choices you can see the pose and texture change (artofcgrobinson)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

Was removal of threat as an active mechanic in WoW a mistake?
I tanked for a long time and I always found it fun as a tank. I don't think it was as fun for everyone depending on the tank. (OccupyGStreet)

I absolutely love Vashj'ir, deep sea exploration that was breath taking, literally. Why the backlash?
IMO the zone was too big and we never quite solved the 3D disorientation and target selection. While realistic, it wasn't awesome. (OccupyGStreet)

SWTOR Level Sync
An announcement about combat changes in Knights of Fallen Empire was posted yesterday, with one of the more interesting features being Level Sync.

Players will be scaled down to the target level of the planets they visit, having their stats, armor, and weapon damage reduced, but keeping all of their abilities.
Players also will earn scaled experience, meaning they that if a player is level 60 and is killing level 30 mobs, they will gain experience appropriate for being a level 60.
This means players can return to older content and play it closer to the intended experience, while still progressing their character.

Poll - Level Scaling
Would you like to have your character scale down to a zone's target level in WoW? What would you do with this feature if it was implemented?

Would you like to have your character scale down to a zone's target level in WoW?

New WildStar Realms
Wildstar had some very long queue times after going free to play this week, so Carbine announced they are temporarily adding more realms to handle the demand.

↧

Blizzcon - Engineering Panel, Item Hotfixes, Tweets, DLC #507

October 4, 2015, 7:42 pm

≫ Next: Armory Stats - Legendary Quest Line, Poll, Tweets, Heroes - Lt. Morales Trailer

≪ Previous: Warcraft III Fan Remake Update, Tweets, SWTOR Level Sync, Poll, New Wildstar Realms

Pig Sticker Inspired Knife, Bane of the Stricken Guide

Top Constructed Decks of the Week, Hearthstone in Japan - Free Pack, Budget Legend Face Hunter

European and Korean Road to Blizzcon, Brawl With the Blues, Americas Recap, ITN #69

Blizzcon - Engineering Panel
While we don't have the Blizzcon schedule just yet, we now know there will be an engineering panel this year! We rarely hear official things about engineering outside of the very rare Engineer's Workshop blog post, so this should be a nice opportunity for players interested in the technical aspects of the game to get some more information!

Patch 6.2.2 Hotfixes - The Frozen Halls
It seems that most of the loot from Pit of Saron and some of The Frozen Halls zone drops had their sell price reduced by 90%, along with the removal of sockets (but not the socket bonus) from some items like Polished Mirror Helm.

Level	Type	Slot	Name
219	Neck	Neck	Painfully Sharp Choker
219	Finger	Finger	Purloined Wedding Ring
219	Cloth	Feet	Ice-Steeped Sandals
219	Cloth	Wrists	Wristguards of Subterranean Moss
219	Back	Back	Cloak of the Fallen Cardinal
219	Cloth	Chest	Palebone Robes
219	Cloth	Legs	Rimewoven Silks
219	Leather	Waist	Flayer's Black Belt
219	Leather	Legs	Shaggy Wyrmleather Leggings
219	Mail	Head	Polished Mirror Helm
219	Mail	Chest	Shroud of Rime
219	Mail	Legs	Black Dragonskin Breeches
219	Mail	Head	Horns of the Spurned Val'kyr
219	Mail	Waist	Scabrous Zombie Leather Belt
219	Mail	Wrists	Gondria's Spectral Bracer
219	Plate	Chest	Scourgelord's Frigid Chestplate
219	Plate	Head	Skeleton Lord's Cranium
219	Plate	Waist	Bent Gold Belt
219	Shield	Off Hand	Protector of Frigid Souls
219	Gun	Ranged	Rimebane Rifle
219	Two-handed Mace	Two Hand	Garfrost's Two-Ton Hammer
219	Staff	Two Hand	Unspeakable Secret
219	Dagger	One Hand	Krick's Beetle Stabber
219	Plate	Waist	Titanium Links of Lore
219	Cloth	Shoulders	Mantle of Tattered Feathers
219	Plate	Hands	Plated Grips of Korth'azz
219	Wand	Ranged	Coffin Nail

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

True story... That reminds me of the fun story of how Rawr's Optimizer's progress bar worked. Ask me some time.(Celestalon)
So, how did the Rawr Optimizer progress bar work?
Rawr's Optimizer used a genetic algorithm (mostly the handiwork of to search for potential improvements. That... (Celestalon)
...means that it wasn't an exhaustive search, it was just really good at searching the likely places. But that also means... (Celestalon)
...that it could virtually infinitely keep searching less and less likely options. Solution was to let user specify... (Celestalon)
...a desired 'thoroughness', which controlled how long it'd keep looking if it hadn't found an improvement in a while. The... (Celestalon)
...progress bar was really a timer of how long it'd been since it found an improvement, except never going backward. That's it. (Celestalon)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

the problem as I see it, blizzard made design choices based on how they think we SHOULD play vs how we WANT to play.
It's tough. The two at the end of the day aren't all that different. But it's not as is if all players speak with one voice. (OccupyGStreet)
And at times players think they're perfectly happy with what they have but get excited about something they didn't expect. (OccupyGStreet)

Blaming your customers for your bad product is a terrible, terrible way to do business.
I think the point is more that communicating with players (esp. angry ones) isn't really the product. (OccupyGStreet)
Engaging with players can be important and valuable but at the end of the day that isn't the game. (OccupyGStreet)
And yet the developer narrative holds the players at fault for the performance of the actual product.
Product failures are always the fault of the product team. I don't hear any blaming the customer here. (OccupyGStreet)

Dark Legacy Comics #507 - Scapegoat
DLC #507 has been released.

↧

Armory Stats - Legendary Quest Line, Poll, Tweets, Heroes - Lt. Morales Trailer

October 5, 2015, 10:50 pm

≫ Next: October 6 Hotfixes, Fan Art, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, Blizzcon - Wil Wheaton

≪ Previous: Blizzcon - Engineering Panel, Item Hotfixes, Tweets, DLC #507

Scheduled Maintenance, Yellow Items GR 40 Challenge, S4 Support Barb Spreadsheet

Thijs' European Road to BlizzCon Decks, Budget Cutpurse Aggro Rogue, Not-so-Secret

Lt. Morales Preview Video, Carbot's Herostorm #5, European and Korean Qualifiers

Armory Stats - Legendary Quest Line Achievements
Today we are taking a look at the legendary quest achievement completion rate of players. The data used today is a sample of 2.1 million players active since August 1. We also did this at the end of 2013 for Mists of Pandaria, which you can see here. As a sidenote, 35.86% of players also have a Level 3 shipyard.

Don't see a chart? Enable javascript!

Name

Percent

Points

Chapter I: Call of the ArchmageBegin Khadgar's legendary quest and prove yourself raid-ready by defeating the spirit of Kairozdormu.

67.13%

Chapter II: Gul'dan Strikes BackComplete Khadgar's legendary Highmaul raid quests and save his life when things take a turn for the worse.

51.65%

Chapter III: The Foundry FallsComplete Khadgar's legendary quests within the Blackrock Foundry until the Iron Horde is on the run!

35.86%

Chapter IV: Darkness IncarnateAcquire your legendary ring by completing Khadgar's quests.

17.37%

Poll - Legendary Ring Progress
How are you doing on the legendary ring questline?

How are you doing on the legendary ring quest?

Patch 6.2.2 Hotfixes - The Frozen Halls
Blizzard put back the missing sockets on the hotfixed gear from The Frozen Halls today.

Level	Type	Slot	Name
219	Cloth	Legs	Rimewoven Silks
219	Leather	Waist	Flayer's Black Belt
219	Mail	Head	Polished Mirror Helm
219	Mail	Head	Horns of the Spurned Val'kyr
219	Plate	Chest	Scourgelord's Frigid Chestplate
219	Plate	Head	Skeleton Lord's Cranium
219	Two-handed Mace	Two Hand	Garfrost's Two-Ton Hammer

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

Originally Posted by MMO-Champion

in this case it doesn't seem to be a vocal minority either. Far more people than average posted disapproval
It's rather difficult to evaluate whether a majority feels a certain way without a relatively scientific survey. (OccupyGStreet)
And majority rule isn't always great for design either. Cell phone customers always just ask for more battery life not features. (OccupyGStreet)

Heroes of the Storm - Lt. Morales Trailer
Blizzard released the trailer for Lt. Morales yesterday.

↧

October 6 Hotfixes, Fan Art, Blue Posts, Blue Tweets, Blizzcon - Wil Wheaton

October 6, 2015, 11:01 pm

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Patch 6.2.2a Hotfixes - October 6

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel

Kilrogg Deadeye
- Fixed an issue that could allow stacks of Rending Howl to incorrectly persist on Salivating Bloodthirsters that have been transformed into Hulking Terrors after a wipe.

PvP
Ashran

Fixed an issue where players queuing for Ashran as a Mercenary could incorrectly receive Recreant.

Items

Bone-Link Fetish and other Dragon Soul trinkets should now correctly have a chance to trigger their effects when players are scaled down below level 90.
Corrected an issue that caused some legacy items from the Normal difficulty Pit of Saron dungeon to lose their gem sockets.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where Tarecgosa's Visage transformation effect from Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest could be incorrectly removed while entering or exiting a phased area.

Fan Art - Everybody wants to Rule the World of Warcraft
Someone put together a nice combination of the World of Warcaft cinematics with the Lorde version of "Everybody Wants To Rule The World".

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Lack of CM Communication
What's wrong to post more information about the game, and be more open? I see there are many Blue post welcoming their new colleague... but none of them are talking and interacting with us.
It's worth keeping in mind that the forum is just one part of our responsibilities as CMs. This article (click on Community Manager / Editor) gives a good insight into our day to day.

In the interests of transparency I’d also like to briefly run through some of the other things we do, besides the forums. This will hopefully give you an idea of our rather varied workload:

Creating/Localising/Publishing of content (Blogs, social media, etc.)
Reviewing and forwarding feedback (from forums, social media, e-mails, fan sites, etc.)
Interaction with players (through digital platforms as well as in person at events – Hellfest for example)
Contests and Giveaways
Planning and execution of events (Launch events, GamesCom, Road to BlizzCon, etc.)
Supporting fan sites, bloggers, streamers, YouTubers, competition and event organisers (Fireside Gatherings, BarCrafts, etc.), pro gamers, cosplayers and other artists – basically all the people who are active in the community.

As you can see, it’s a very varied list of tasks but all of the tasks directly relate to the community as a whole. There’s never really a shortage of work that needs doing.

Although we are reading the forums every day to stay informed about trends, suggestions and feedback, please also keep in mind that the forums are primarily intended as a way for everyone to discuss the game amongst themselves.

Now that being said, I do intend to interact with you as frequently as I can. If you have any questions after reading this, please don't hesitate to ask. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

content designers create quests, partially? noticed an opening for an associate is why I'm curious. I'd guess darkmoon too?
Spawning, quests, encounters, events holidays and otherwise. Yeah, that general range of things. (craig_amai)

(Normal Hellfire Citadel hotfixes)
itch if it doesnt stay easy and then progression is ruined for those that dont want a blow through on normal
The thing is, these changes won't make the actual intended audience "blow through" normal. If you crush Normal, do Heroic. (WatcherDev)

Blizzcon - Wil Wheaton
In case you missed it when it was originally posted, Wil Wheaton is hosting the Blizzcon contests this year!

He posted a blog post about getting ready recently and spent the day atBlizzardtoday.

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