Filed under: News items

Reminder: Blizzcon tickets on sale today

by Sarah Pine Apr 24th 2013 at 11:00AM

It's that time again, time for furious clicking, frantic drop-down menu selections, and long, long queue times. DPS in the dungeon finder during peak hour queue times. BlizzCon tickets will be on sale today starting at 7 pm PDT. If previous years are any indication they will be gone fast, so be prepared. If you can't get them today for whatever reason, they will be on sale again on Saturday, April 27 at 10 am PDT. If you miss out then, there is a third chance to get a ticket as part of the Orange County Children's Hospital pre-BlizzCon benefit dinner, and those tickets will on sale Wednesday, May 1st at 7 pm PDT.

As in 2011, BlizzCon tickets will cost US$175 each. In previous years there has been a limit to the number of tickets an individual is allowed to buy, so I assume that will once more be the case. If you're trying for tickets good luck and happy clicking!

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Select pet types may receive new passives in Pet Battles

by Alex Ziebart Apr 23rd 2013 at 7:00PM

Blizzard community managers Nakatoir and Crithto have recently announced potential changes coming to Elemental, Aquatic, Critter, and Magic passive abilities in the Pet Battle system. The Pet Battle system is still relatively new compared to the 8-year-old World of Warcraft and very much in flux. As pets and their abilities are buffed and nerfed, the system as a whole needs to adjust to accommodate those changes.

The short version of these proposed changed are as follows:

Elementals will lose their immunity to weather, instead taking reduced damage on their first round in play
Critters will become completely immune to crowd control rather than reducing their duration to one round
Magic pets cannot be dealt more than 35% of their health in one attack, changed from 40%
Aquatic pets will reduce damage taken from Damage over Time effects by 50%, up from 25%

Crithto and Nakatoir's full posts can be found behind the cut below.

Filed under: News items

Patch 5.2 hotfixes for April 22

by Sarah Pine Apr 23rd 2013 at 5:00PM

Some hotfixes went live today after the server restart. The big one that has my guildmates jumping up and down with glee is the change to the cost of Mogu Runes of Fate - they now cost 50 Lesser Charms of Good Fortune, down from 90 previously. Now, I do lots of dailies, so I couldn't get rid of my Lesser Charms fast enough even before the price nerf, but this is a great quality of life change that will give people more Runes of Fate to spend on chances for gear.

In addition, players picked from different realms will now be able to get loot and bonus rolls off of Oondasta and Nalak, and there are some minor nerfs to the Twin Consorts fight in Throne of Thunder. The Sinister Primal Diamond has also had some tweaks to its activation rate, particularly for fire mages. The full blue text is below the cut.

Filed under: News items, Hotfixes

Patch 5.3 PTR patch notes for April 22

by Olivia Grace Apr 23rd 2013 at 12:00PM

The latest set of updates to the latest build landed on the Blizzard blog last night, and there are some more pretty big changes coming in on the PTR. As well as the usual class balance fixes, which bring some more number balancing to Atonement for discipline priests, as well as to paladins' Battle Healer, there are some fairly notable quality of life changes being made to the older content in this expansion.

Experience needed to increase from level 85 to level 90 has been reduced by 33%.
Players no longer need to have defeated Grand Empress Shek'zeer to enter the Terrace of Endless Spring in Normal difficulty.

And what's more, for current content, there is a substantial change to the acquisition quest for Mogu Runes of Fate.

Reduced the number of Lesser Charms of Good Fortune needed for the Mogu Runes of Fate weekly quest to 50, down from 90.

The experience nerf and the Lesser Charm change are the most interesting here, and it seems like Blizzard might be rethinking some of their earlier ideas on how hard the grind has to be in order to encourage players to stay and level their alts. What do you think?

Hit the break for the full notes.

Filed under: News items

Last Week in WoW: Barrelling toward patch 5.3 edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Apr 23rd 2013 at 9:00AM

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Patch 5.3 continues to be on the PTR, and the changes keep coming. We still have no actual ETA for when the patch will hit live servers, but it's certainly not slowing down. On the other hand, the live servers are hopping too, with Raid Finder finally opening its doors to all comers, allowing us all to take down the notorious Lei Shen. As always, our intrepid team has been out covering it all.

Downtime today is just a series of rolling restarts at 7 a.m. PDT. The process is expected to take about an hour, which is more than enough time to skim our usual roundup of the last week of news. Read on to see what you may have missed.

Hot news and features

The World of Warcraft community team will be hosting a live Q&A with the developers on April 25.
Aiming for a BlizzCon ticket? We have a few tips to help you nab yours.
Check out the latest patch 5.2 hotfixes for April 16 and April 18.
The Answers to the recent PvP themed Ask the Devs are now up.
Throne of Thunder Raid Finder is now completely open. We have a quick 5-second guide to each of the new bosses.
We preview the new patch 5.3 battleground Deepwind Gorge.
Engineers will be able to make a Bad Robot pet in a future patch.
Fs, the original world first level 90 who was later rolled back to 87, has had his world first achievement reinstated.
As of patch 5.3, carrying a flag in battlegrounds will cause a tank to take more damage.
Legendary metagems are restricted to Throne of Thunder helms only.
The Shado-Pan Assault trinkets have been hotfixed to be a bit less effective in PvP.

Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Live WoW Developer Q&A Thursday, April 25

by Alex Ziebart Apr 19th 2013 at 9:41PM

Next week Thursday from 5:30-6:30 p.m. PDT, the World of Warcraft community team will be hosting a live Q&A session with Blizzard developers/designers Dave Kosak, Ion Hazzikostas, Brian Holinka, Cory Stockton, and Greg Street. The last time we saw one of these with a developer collective was back in October 2011. More recently, in December 2012, Blizzard Customer Support hosted a Q&A of their own.

The full details and job description of each of the developers involved can be found below.

Filed under: News items, Mists of Pandaria

Bad Robot battle pet to come in 'a future patch'

by Matthew Rossi Apr 19th 2013 at 8:00PM

Engineers who also like J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions can rejoice in knowing they'll be able to craft this homage to the production house in World of Warcraft. No word yet on what's so bad about said little robot, but here he is regardless.

Blizzard <3s Bad Robot

One of the core values we live by here at Blizzard is "Embrace Your Inner Geek." We play countless games, we collect comics and card games, we love cutting-edge technology and computer hardware, we're fascinated by science and discovery, and many of us are movie buffs. Movies represent the combined imaginations of talented writers and visionaries, artists and operators, editors and producers, that can culminate in an awesome cinematic experience.

It's with this motivation that we express our respect for JJ Abrams' Bad Robot Productions.

Coming in a future patch, characters with the Engineering profession will be able to produce this mechanical homage to the company that brought us award-winning television shows like Lost and Fringe, and are continuing the epic Star Trek and forthcoming Star Wars film sagas. Everyone has a chance to get their hands on this pet, allowing them to show off their mutual appreciation for Bad Robot, and the stories they've brought to our TVs and movie screens.

We hope everyone enjoys this new pet!

source

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.

Filed under: News items, Mists of Pandaria

Ask the Devs PvP changes now up

by Matthew Rossi Apr 19th 2013 at 1:00PM

Not too long ago it was announced that there would be an Ask the Devs dedicated to the patch 5.3 PTR changes. Now, it's here. If you're dying to know exactly how all these changes are going to play out, this is the Q&A for you. Some highlights:

At patch 5.3, gear will simply be capped. During patch 5.4 the plan is for the cap to go up so that new gear will have a purpose in PvP.
They are still considering ways to calculate the cap (one possibility being a cap based on the average of your gear rather than a flat cap). Elite PvP gear is intended to be a cosmetic difference.
The goal is not to prevent PvE gear in PvP - would be simple to do just that, but rather to make it so players who are in full Conquest gear don't feel forced to run PvE for trinkets and other off pieces.
Resilience changes are based around the idea that resilience was too necessary to have any chance in PvP - this way, you can gear to overcome it.
PvP power on Conquest gear will mean a PvP geared player will have an edge on all but fully heroic geared PvE players in World PvP, and will be fairly even against them. World PvP is inherently less fair than structured PvP, part of its charm.
They will be discussing other PvP rewards down the road now that Elite gear is cosmetic, other PvP rewards that aren't just gear.

So for all that plus a lot more, go give the Ask the Devs PvP edition a read.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, PvP, Mists of Pandaria

Rolled back druid has World First level 90 reinstated

by Olivia Grace Apr 18th 2013 at 7:00PM

WoW Insider readers who have been around for a few months may remember the strange story of a druid. On the same day as the expasion released, a druid by the name of Fs hit level 90. He was subsequently rolled back to level 87, as the linked article was updated to reflect, and many cried foul, asserting that he had cheated, that he had somehow made use of an exploit to get through the levels at such speed.

Athene sat down with some of the guys who had helped Fs to 90, and chatted with them about how they'd done it. They asserted that it was simply related to a buff that was put onto them by some mobs in Townlong Steppes, shamans to be specific, which they'd used to farm mobs for XP. They said they'd done nothing else, but the fact that Blizzard rolled Fs back didn't really support them.

The latest development in the story happened late last night, when Blizzard Community Vaneras posted the following:

Vaneras

After some lengthy deliberation on this topic and evaluation of all facts, we've decided to overturn our decision on this matter. We will be re-instating Fs's achievements. Our apologies to Fs for any frustration this has caused.

source

So it seems from this that, actually, the claims were true, there was no exploit, no cheating, and the achievement was legitimate. Fs's achievements have also been reinstated on the armory. Almost 7 months down the line, congratulations!

Filed under: News items

WoWinSchool project nabs Gamification Summit 2013 award

by Lisa Poisso Apr 18th 2013 at 3:00PM

WoWinSchool project nabs Gamification Summit award

Everything they learned, they learned from World of Warcraft -- or in this case, everything they taught. Congratulations are in order for WoW players and educators Lucas Gillispie and Peggy Sheehy, whose WoWinSchool program has earned a GAward for Best Use of Engagement Techniques in Education at the Gamification Summit 2013 taking place now in San Francisco. The award recognizes the effective use engagement techniques such as loyalty, gamification, and behavioral science in programs, apps, projects, campaigns, and companies.

"WoW in School: The Hero's Journey" is a full-year language arts course for middle school students. While the program was initially targeted for "at-risk" youths, Gillispie and Sheehy quickly saw that the approach was a hit with learners of all abilities and backgrounds.

Don't we wish our own teachers had been so open-minded and current? See how Gillispie and Sheehy win the hearts and minds of their young students in our in-depth interviews with the dynamic educators, Learn to game to game to learn and WoW goes to English class.

Filed under: News items

Trouble filling those last few raid slots? Try the raid browser

by Lisa Poisso Apr 18th 2013 at 2:00PM

It's frustrating to lose time when you need to fill those last few raid spots, yet the Raid Finder isn't coming up with the players you need. Or maybe you're the one who's seeking a raid group, but nothing seems to be shaking loose that night. In a recent Breakfast Topic on in-game help tools, WoW Insider reader PaulLloyd offered up a strikingly simple suggestion that gives both types of seekers one more avenue of hope: the old-school Raid browser.

The wha...? PaulLloyd's not referring to the Raid Finder tab in the contemporary Dungeon Finder feature. This relic of olden raiding days, folks, is the previous system found tucked inside the Social tab. Writes PaulLloyd:

This is the "find a raid" system that pre-dates LFR. You would list your interest in a certain raid, and when a raid group is looking for a certain role to be filled, they would look them up on this list. It would've saved me cancelling many raids if people would use it. Sadly, it is hidden away, forcing RLs to use trade chat for missing slots, which relies on people sitting around a city and watching trade chat, which means a huge number of people missing the message.

For those wondering "what the hell is the raid browser?" Open the social tab (default 'O'). Select 'Raid' tab. Click 'Other Raids' Button. If you're announcing your availability to a raid, use the 'Choose Raid' tab. If you're looking for people, use the 'Browse' tab.

While nobody's advocating using this older system as a replacement for the Raid Finder, it makes a fine adjunct tool that could come through if enough players and raid leaders give it a try. PaulLloyd observes that the system is fairly useless on his realm because players simply don't use it, but other players seem hopeful that it could offer a helpful backup method of finding raiders and raids. What do you think? Seems worth a try!

Filed under: News items

Pinnacle of Storms is now open in Raid Finder

by Elizabeth Harper Apr 16th 2013 at 7:00PM

If you're looking for something to do in WoW tonight you're in luck because the Pinnacle of Storms wing of Throne of Thunder has just opened in the raid finder. If you haven't kept up with the story of patch 5.2's massive Throne of Thunder raid, this wing will pit you against Iron Qon, the Twin Consorts, and even Lei Shen, the Thunder King himself. If you need some help figuring out these fights, check out our PTR guides to Iron Qon, the Twin Consorts, and Lei Shen as well as Icy Veins strategy guides for Iron Qon, Twin Consorts, and Lei Shen.

Good luck and happy raiding!

Filed under: News items

Last Week in WoW: Alliance pride edition

by Daniel Whitcomb Apr 16th 2013 at 9:00AM

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. It's been an undercurrent for a while now, but a pressing question seems to be sweeping the WoW world lately. Is the Alliance getting a bad deal in lore right now? A lot of people think so. Our writers got in on the discussion too. Anne talked about reactive vs. proactive storytelling, while Alex advocates a return of some Alliance heroes and more equality for the Alliance player character, among other things.

I won't lie, I side with those who are disappointed with Alliance lore lately. I've tried to console myself with cinematics of our glory days, including that one at the top of this article. The other option was ice cream, but I'm trying to lose weight.

Luckily, no matter what you think of Alliance lore, the rest of game is still pretty awesome. For proof, read on. We have a roundup of all the latest news, including some of the good stuff coming with patch 5.3. Realm maintenance starts at 5 a.m. Pacific time and lasts 6 hours, so you have time to read up.

Hot news and features

Read up on the latest PTR changes for April 11 and April 15.
Check the latest patch 5.2 hotfixes for April 8, April 9, and April 10.
Bashiok recently clarified the Durumu hotfixes.
We have a listing of the new Darkspear Rebellion quartermaster rewards.
We have a preview of two of the patch 5.3 scenarios, Dark Heart of Pandaria and the Blood In The Snow.
You can now choose which specialization loot you'll get from Raid Finder and bonus rolls in patch 5.3.
We take a look at the Darkspear Rebellion faction on the patch 5.3 PTR.

Filed under: Realm Status, News items

The eternal question of mounting versus running

by Olivia Grace Apr 15th 2013 at 4:00PM

There is a question that always plagues me. If I have to travel a short distance in WoW, say, from the Shado-Pan Garrison Flight Master to either the Horde or the Alliance portals to Thunder Isle, would I be better off to run on foot, or mount up?

There are various factors that ought to be considered when making such an incredibly, earth-shatteringly important decision. The biggest consideration is the summon time for a mount, firstly, which requires that your character stand still for 1.5 seconds. That time is time wasted, time which could be spent running towards your destination. And what's more, many characters have speed boosts, like Blink, Heroic Leap, Feline Swiftness, Body and Soul, and so on. Those all have to be factored into your decision: to mount or not to mount?

I posted this question on Twitter last night, and among the discussion, a mathematical force emerged. Jarre, druid blogger at Rank4HealingTouch, leapt in with some calculations. They obtained their numbers for a character's base run speed, and put together what they referred to as "a bit of napkin math".

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items

Weekly news roundup with Panser of TradeChat

by Michael Gray Apr 12th 2013 at 7:00PM

TradeChat's Panser returns with this week's WoW Insider news recap, where we look back at the hottest news from the past week and whatever other kickin' rad things may have come our way. This week's topics include:

Blizzard buys IGN Pro
In-game Hearthstone event? Or perhaps a Hearthsteed!
Brawler's Guild stuff we can't talk about
Loot for every occasion
Transmog right in your storage
Breakfast Topic: Your jealous moments

If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe to TradeChat, leave a comment, and come back next week for the next episode!

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items

← Previous Page|Next Page →

Breaking news Feed

WoW Insider Show

Subscribe via iTunes for our latest show.

Hot Topics

Upcoming Events

Event	Date
Call to Arms: Isle of Conquest	5/14 - 5/16
Call to Arms: Alterac Valley	5/17 - 5/20
Call to Arms: The Battle for Gilneas	5/21 - 5/23
Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch	5/24 - 5/27
Call to Arms: Twin Peaks	5/28 - 5/30
Call to Arms: Strand of the Ancients	5/31 - 6/3
Darkmoon Faire	6/2 - 6/9
Call to Arms: Silvershard Mines	6/4 - 6/6
Call to Arms: Temple of Kotmogu	6/11 - 6/13
Call to Arms: Arathi Basin	6/18 - 6/20
Midsummer Fire Festival	6/21 - 7/5
Call to Arms: Eye of the Storm	6/25 - 6/27