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Filed under: News items

Dragon Soul Power of the Aspects buff to increase next week

by Adam Holisky Feb 22nd 2012 at 1:00PM

Starting at server maintenance next Tuesday, the Power of the Aspects buff will increase in Dragon Soul. This means that the health and damage output from enemies will be reduced by 10%. Remember that this only applies to normal and heroic versions and that it can always be shut off.

The Power of the Aspects buff currently stands at 5%, which went into effect on Jan. 31, 2011. So it took about a month for the buff to increase to the next level. Blizzard has said the spell will continue to increase but not at a set interval, as was done in Icecrown Citadel.

The full blue post is as follows:

Blizzard Entertainment
During the scheduled server maintenance on the week of February 28, the "Power of the Aspects" spell will grow more powerful, reducing the health and damage dealt of all enemies in the Dragon Soul raid by 10%. This spell will grow progressively stronger over time to reduce the difficulty and make the encounters more accessible. The spell will affect both normal and Heroic difficulties, but it will not affect the Raid Finder difficulty.

Don't need the help of the Dragon Aspects? The spell can be disabled by talking to Lord Afrasastrasz at the beginning of Dragon Soul.

We hope you continue to enjoy Dragon Soul, and that these changes encourage you to attempt a higher difficulty, or just keep pushing to down that next boss.

Filed under: News items, Raiding

Last Week in WoW: Talented panda edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Feb 21st 2012 at 7:00AM

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Well, things may seem deceptively lull-like, signs seem to point to the idea that the Pandaria train is building up steam. This week bought us an update to the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator. You can check the class news section below to see if we've dissected the updates for your favorite class yet. If we haven't, it's coming soon (maybe even today!).

Scheduled maintenance this morning is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so you should have time to catch up on all the latest WoW news while your realm's down. Read on for a list of some of our best articles from the past seven days.

Read more →

Filed under: Realm Status, News items

WoW Insider Weekly News Update for Feb. 17, 2012

by Mathew McCurley Feb 17th 2012 at 2:00PM

The WoW Insider Weekly News Update is your source for all the biggest stories from the past week wrapped up in a neat little video package. Mathew McCurley hosts your quick look at this week's biggest news.

If you haven't already subscribed to the WoW Insider YouTube channel, you should!

News this week:

Filed under: Podcasts, News items

BlizzPlanet goes to Toy Fair 2012 in New York

by Mathew McCurley Feb 14th 2012 at 8:00PM

Toy Fair 2012 started up on Sunday, Feb. 12, at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City, where many companies announced awesome new licensed Blizzard products that we're definitely excited about. The event ends tomorrow on Wednesday, Feb. 15. BlizzPlanet has been on the scene to report back on all of the new products coming stamped with the Blizzard seal of approval.

MEGA Bloks showed up with new prototypes for the World of Warcraft MEGA Bloks sets coming soon, with cool catapults and orcish scenary. Giant MEGA Blok Thrall was on hand to pose with fans. Insight Editions showed off its Diablo III: Book of Cain, and USAopoly made one of the biggest announcements with World of Warcraft Monopoly and RISK: StarCraft.

DC Unlimited continued to show off its figures for the World of Warcraft series, many of which were delayed for a long time for unknown reasons. However, these figures are coming, and they look great.

Check out BlizzPlanet for coverage of all of the licensed Blizzard products showing up at the convention.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Heart of the Aspects mount now available for $25

by Alex Ziebart Feb 14th 2012 at 5:00PM

While patch 4.3 was on the PTR, dataminers discovered a pretty slick-looking mount in the game files: the Heart of the Aspects. We all speculated as to how players might receive it, and today we found our answer. You can buy it from the Blizzard Store for $25, adding it to your stable of real-money mounts alongside the Celestial Steed and Winged Guardian.

Update: Blizzard has released their official announcement.

Filed under: News items

Last Week in WoW: What is Pandaria edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Feb 14th 2012 at 10:30AM

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. As expected, we marked yet another week without any significant Mists of Pandaria news, but it's all good. We did get some gaming news about another pretty huge upcoming release, including a glimpse at the girl I'm spending Valentine's Day with. So I'm fine. Pandaria can wait.

That said, there was still some prime WoW news in the pipeline over the last week. We had the Activision Blizzard investor conference call, where we learned that WoW lost only 100,000 subscribers since last count, mostly on the strength of the WoW annual pass. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street held a discussion on class roles. We also got a new Blizzard representative on the story forums, Nyorloth, who's already starting things off we a bang with a shipping thread. Heck, we even heard that a Warcraft Monopoly game is in the works. There's a downtime filler for you.

Downtime this is week is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST, so in lieu of Warcraft Monopoly, we have plenty of stuff for you to read, both in the paragraph above and in our usual roundup below.

Read more →

Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Blizzard opposes Valve's DOTA trademark application

by Mathew McCurley Feb 13th 2012 at 5:00PM

Blizzard has filed an opposition in Valve's ongoing trademark application to trademark the word DOTA, an acronym for the Defense of the Ancients map made popular through Warcraft III's custom map scene. DOTA was responsible for a good portion of Warcraft III's success and widespread competitive play, and the community has been calling the genre DOTA for many years before Valve began development of DOTA 2.

Valve hired on DOTA developer Icefrog to develop a new DOTA product from the ground up in house. Other DOTA developers went off to form Riot Games, which makes the incredibly popular League of Legends. And even as Riot tries to shift the nomenclature from DOTA to MOBA, the community that started it all is still winning out. Even Valve head honcho Gabe Newell said he didn't like the DOTA or MOBA acronym, instead substituting ARTS, or Action Real Time Strategy, in its place.

Filing an opposition does not necessarily mean that Blizzard wants to trademark DOTA -- it doesn't. Rather, an opposition makes light of information otherwise not seen and shows that there is more at stake and more people and parties have a stake in the word DOTA as being a community-owned term.

Valve and Gabe Newell responded to Blizzard's opposition by stating that the game being developed was a true sequel to DOTA and rightfully should have the moniker trademarked. However, the DOTA genre is still very much a term used to describe the three-lane tower setup of the classic DOTA map.

Blizzard will be releasing its own Blizzard DOTA game in the future through its brand new Battle.net Arcade system.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Trade in your real currency for toy currency today!

by Alex Ziebart Feb 10th 2012 at 4:00PM

Earlier today, the European Battle.net community site announced the release of both the latest set of collectible World of Warcraft action figures and a brand new collection of Alliance- and Horde-themed coins. ... Wait a second, haven't we seen those coins before?

Oh. Yeah. We did. We saw them at Comic-Con in 2009. I'm going to cut Blizzard a break on this one and assume it doesn't control DC Direct's production and distribution facilities. So ... DC, this one's for you. Holy crap, guys. Almost three years ago! Three!

Well, anyway, if you're looking to spend your hard-earned coins on different coins that aren't worth as much as the ones you started with, you can purchase them on the North American Blizzard Store for $49.99 USD per set or on the European Blizzard Store for £56.95.

Filed under: News items, Humor, BlizzCon

World of Warcraft subscriber numbers dip 100,000 to 10.2 million

by Adam Holisky Feb 9th 2012 at 4:33PM

During this afternoon's Activision Blizzard investor call, it was announced that WoW's subscribers numbers dropped another 100,000 players from September 2011 to 10.2 million at the end of December 2011.

World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers peaked around 12 million back in late 2010 and early 2011 and have been in decline since. The game slipped to 11.4 million subscribers in May 2011, then down to 10.3 million in September of 2011. While subscriber numbers continue to fall, the rate of lost subscriptions has slowed significantly.

In further clarification of the game's subscriber numbers, Blizzard President and Cofounder Mike Morhaime said that Blizzard has seen no significant change and that "December was a good month for us." This past quarter was, according to Morhaime, the "most competitive quarter ever." World of Warcraft's competition primarily came from Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Blizzard believes that the success of patch 4.3, community engagement, and the Annual Pass contributed to the subscriber retention it's seen.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler on class roles

by Daniel Whitcomb Feb 8th 2012 at 9:30PM

With the Mists of Pandaria press event still a month down the road, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted a new Dev Watercooler to keep us busy. This time, he philosophizes on the role of class roles. He cautions up front that this is not meant to be any sort of announcement or even hint at what's to come in Mists of Pandaria.

But at the same time, the struggle of what to do with class roles is one that's always relevant and ongoing within the game, and that includes Mists of Pandaria. Ghostcrawler gets right into the meat of it with this blog, asking questions and discussing various methods of balance. Do we strive for perfect balance among all DPS specs? Is it fine to leave certain specs with specialties? Should we return to the days of the solid divide between PvP and PvE specs, as it was in the vanilla era? Should each class just have one DPS talent tree? Read on for all of Ghostcrawler's comments.

Read more →

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Official Monopoly: World of Warcraft game to be unveiled next week

by Fox Van Allen Feb 8th 2012 at 8:00PM

Anyone familiar with board games could tell you that there are about 100,000 different versions of Monopoly out there. There's an officially licensed The Wizard of Oz Monopoly. There's a Powerpuff Girls Monopoly. And a Looney Tunes Monopoly. Even the lousy IP-cash-in movie effort Cars 2 has its own version of Monopoly. So it would only stand to reason that World of Warcraft would get its own version of Monopoly eventually, right?

Right.

According to BlizzPlanet, an officially licensed World of Warcraft Monopoly will be unveiled at next week's Toy Fair 2012 in New York City. There really aren't any details as of yet, just that the board game will be showcased. Presumably, though, there will be a lot of customization involved, right down to the playing tokens.

Perhaps even more exciting than Monopoly (a game I am incapable of losing, FYI) is the companion Blizzard tie-in, Risk: StarCraft. Supposedly, the playing pieces for that game will include StarCraft II units. That's all sorts of awesome.

Update: BlizzPlanet has removed its references to these games in its Toy fair 2012 posting, so it's possible USAopoly was not prepared to announce these products yet.

Filed under: News items, Rumors

Take the WoW Ironman Challenge

by Mathew McCurley Feb 7th 2012 at 12:00PM

Forum user Jahjin, a troll priest from the Moonglade (EU) guild Twisted Tusks, has posted the rules of the World of Warcraft Ironman Challenge, a grueling, self-imposed challenge designed to take the leveling experience of WoW to a new level of difficulty. Blizzard has even thrown its support into the ring, wishing players embarking on the Ironman Challenge the best of luck.

Blizzard is no stranger to Ironman-type challenges. Both Diablo and Diablo II featured rough hard modes that would cripple those who were not the best. Frankly, the fact that there are players out there putting together these difficulty challenges probably makes a lot of folks over at Blizzard very happy.

Some of these Ironman Challenge rules are pretty brutal. Death is death -- if you die, delete. End of story. Better make it a PvE realm choice, if you want to curb a lot of nonsense-deaths. You aren't even allowed to use talent points, including the one to pick your specialization. No specialization is a rough road to take. If this is your kind of thing, brutal self-hatred, you're going to have a ton of fun.

Head over to the official WoW forums to check out all of the rules and FAQ. If you do decide to try the Ironman Challenge, share your progress in the thread.

Filed under: News items

Don't forget that the Darkmoon Faire is live, too

by Alex Ziebart Feb 6th 2012 at 5:00PM

At this point, it shouldn't be hard to remember when the Darkmoon Faire is active. This is our third month with the new Darkmoon Island. However, with both Lunar Festival and Love is in the Air in progress, we figure this friendly reminder can't hurt. It's incredibly easy to get caught up in the festivities with so many events happening at one time.

Remember, your Darkmoon Faire achievement progress has been reset since last month. Don't wait until the last minute to take care of those! And if you need a little help with those achievements, we have a guide for that.

Filed under: Events, News items

Darkmoon Faire achievement progress reset but will be saved in the future

by Fox Van Allen Feb 3rd 2012 at 3:00PM

If you're working toward your new Darkmoon Faire achievements, you've no doubt been frustrated by the event's inability to save your progress from month to month. Today, there's some good news: Starting with the February Faire and moving forward, achievement progress will be saved. The bad news? All the progress you made in past months can't be restored -- you still have to work from scratch.

Darkmoon Faire Achievement Progress - Update, 03/02
January's Darkmoon Faire achievement progress status was cleared prior to the launch of February's faire. Any achievements that were started but not completed have had their criteria reset. Completed achievements are unaffected.

However, any future achievement progress (February included) will be saved to your character and will continue to contribute towards progression of those achievements in subsequent visits to Darkmoon Faire.

Regrettably, we are not able to restore any progress you may have made during January's faire. We do appreciate the impact this may have had and sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.


I'm not sure whether or not we should be playing the Final Fantasy 7 victory theme on this one or whether we should be playing the The Price is Right losing horns. What do they do when someone plays Plinko but only gets like $200 out of it?
Enjoy working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on patch 4.3 achievements, our guide to Mountain O' Mounts, and a good, hard look at what's wrong with archaeology and how Blizzard could fix it.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Achievements, Hotfixes

Patch 4.3.2 hotfixes for Feb. 2, 2012

by Adam Holisky Feb 2nd 2012 at 10:50PM

Besides the highly publicized hotfix of the retribution paladin bug, we've got some other fixes that were announced tonight. Keep in mind that while most of fixes like this are usually live right away, some may require a restart or not be active immediately -- so your mileage may vary.

Highlights include a fix to Mass Dispel and some Darkmoon Faire quick fixes.

The full list of hotfixes as follows:

Blizzard Entertainment -- Patch 4.3 Hotfixes

February 2

  • General
    • Mass Dispel should once again dispel up to 10 friendly or enemy targets.
    • Resilience should now properly reduce the damage over time effects for targets affected by Mind Control.
  • Dungeons and Raids
    • Dragon Soul
    • Lord Afrasastrasz no longer offers the option to disable the Power of the Aspects buff in Raid Finder mode.
      • The Spine of Deathwing
        • Corrupted Bloods should no longer maintain threat after reconstituting themselves from residue.
  • Events
    • Darkmoon Faire
      • Soothsayer's Runes and A Treatise on Strategy should now drop from all appropriate Heroic and raid bosses.
      • Murozond's Temporal Cache now has a chance to contain Monstrous Egg and A Treatise on Strategy.
  • Quests and Creatures
    • Players who inadvertently disconnect during Tailgunner! should now find themselves able to complete the quest.
    • Baby Crocolisks have been given tiny teething rings, and Tiny Teeth! should no longer transfer to other players.
    • Players should no longer encounter any invisible Young Crocolisks during the quest The Pit of Scales.
  • Items
    • Cunning of the Cruel will now trigger its Shadowbolt Volley approximately three times as often, but will deal approximately one third as much damage. This results in the tooltip for the item being incorrect, but should moderate its burst damage in PvP.

Filed under: News items

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