Filed under: Worldwide Invitational

In case you hadn't already heard, there won't be a BlizzCon 2012. While I personally have never gone, many of the staffers here have and are sad pandas that they won't get to this year, as I gather are a lot of you as well. Our friend Bashiok answered a forum thread on the news with the reasoning behind it.

Bashiok - No Blizzcon

Yeah it's a bit disappointing because we all really do enjoy being able to 'open the doors' so to speak. But, it is an enormous effort by all employees, including our game designers and artists, not to mention customer support and quality assurance, PR, our business departments, and *hot breath on fingernails & shirt rub* Community & eSports to make a BlizzCon happen. In a year when we're working to release multiple titles (knock on wood) it makes sense to focus our efforts. Also with multiple game releases we just wonder if we'd be at a point with any of them where we'd have anything really big or new or cool to talk about.

We didn't have a BlizzCon in 2006 either, and at that time we were really strong on the idea that BlizzCon isn't really supposed to be and doesn't have to be an annual event. Of course then we have it for five straight years in a row... which obviously built some expectation.

Personally I always enjoy seeing the excitement, the rushing crowds, hearing the clicking of mice on the demo stations, and waiting in agony as the seconds countdown to an announcement and then the waves of emotion from the crowd that follow it. But thinking about our year and what we're trying to get done already without a BlizzCon, and having to think pretty hard about what we'd have to announce or demo, it just makes sense to me not to have one.

Here's to the Battle.net World Championship, it's going to be awesome, and to a bigger and better BlizzCon in 2013.

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So there you have it. With multiple titles aimed for release this year, not only would it be a lot of work to also run a convention, but then the convention wouldn't have much to show, since all the titles would have been released beforehand. While this is sad news, it does definitely make me think we're going to be running around Pandaria (and freeing Sanctuary, and dealing with the Zerg) well before the middle of this year.

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The news is out -- we'll be playing Mists of Pandaria! Find out what's in store with an all-new talent system, peek over our shoulder at our Pandaren hands-on, and get ready to battle your companion pets against others. It's all here right at WoW Insider!

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen rains sheer purple destruction down on the growing list of WoW Insider columnists who oppose him (and sometimes, even on those who don't).

I am Fox, thy columnist, who hath brought thee out of the land of the Light, out of the house of Dawn Moore. For thee, my loyal followers, I offer the 10 commandments of the house of shadow (subsequently edited down to five by his cruel editorial overseers):

• Thou shalt have no other columnists before me.
• Thou shalt not lie with Tyler as one lies with Fox; Tyler is detestable.
• Thou shalt kill. With high DPS.
• Thou shalt covet the hell out of thy neighbor's Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest, because that thing is sweet.
• Thou shalt not freak the hell out over patch notes, even when they involve slashing the damage caused by our DOTs.

Patch 4.2 Public Test Realm Guide [Updated 5/13]

• Devouring Plague damage done has been decreased by 12%.
• Mind Blast damage done has been increased by 12%.
• Shadow Word: Death damage done has been increased by 12%.
• Shadow Word: Pain damage done has been decreased by 12%.
• Mind Flay damage done has been increased by 12%.
• Vampiric Touch damage done has been decreased by 12%.

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The above patch notes, which detail a 12%, across-the-board cut to DOTs (and an accompanying 12% across-the-board buff to direct damage spells), represents the first major change for shadow priests to come out of the PTR. But what exactly does the change mean, and why was it done? Are shadow priests going to lag behind in patch 4.2? Are shadow priests being pushed away from a DOT-heavy model and toward something else?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have some good news and we have some bad news.

The good news: Servers are coming back up, at least for those in the United States! You can log on and enjoy World of Warcraft again, ahead of the previously announced 5 p.m. PST time.

The bad news: Some dragon-ish rapscallion has totally shattered the world over the course of the last 12 hours or so. Whoops.

Everyone loves Mini Tyrael, the angelic little pet given away to attendees of last year's Worldwide Invitational in Paris. While the little guy looks awesome (indeed he's my favorite pet), he's always let folks down by doing, well, very little. He didn't make a noise when you clicked on him but he would /dance with you. Well, Blizzard has finally bothered to address the situation and make Tyrael into the pet he should be. After all, he is an angel, they're supposed to be cool.

I was in Stormwind the other day meeting a friend for an impromptu party to celebrate the fact he had just gotten El Pollo Grande. So while we compared chickens and abused the /chicken command, I got out the Foam Sword Rack and my Ogre Pinata and then summoned the little guy. Even now it amazes me how many people come up to me and whisper to inquire how I got/crafted him and could they get/buy one.

As we were dancing, I noticed big green zzzz's coming from my beloved pet. At first I thought someone had cast a spell on him as he'd never done this before but it turns out he was just bored. Yes, Blizzard may not have added any sound effects but Tyrael now passes out when he gets bored (perhaps he's waiting for the release of Diablo III?). He will toss and turn for a bit, as if having a nightmare about Sanctuary and Diablo, and will wake up after ten seconds or so with a cool ripple effect to remind us just how divine he is. I've yet to find someone with the Mini Diablo pet and see if they will fight it out, a la Grunty and the Zergling though.

Hit the jump to see a video of Tyrael's emoting awesomeness,

One of the Technology writers, Murad Ahmed, from the U.K. Times went to BlizzCon this past week and apparently had a pretty good time. I'm positive he doesn't actually play the game, and he admits to being a little lost, especially when it comes to the frenetic action of the professional arena tournament (although, truthfully, I often have a hard time following it too). But he did seem to hit upon the major draw of the convention -- namely, getting to hang with your fellow gamers, and hopefully guildies if you're lucky, and enjoying a giant get-together where the person next to you is virtually certain to get a WoW-related joke.

As a bonus, Mr. Ahmed got to interview James Taplin, one of our readers (BlizzCon attendees will know him as one of the people at the WoW Insider meet-up, and later the 3rd place winner in the /silly competition), who confirmed that the social aspect of both the game and convention are really the big attraction. I think it's precisely that aspect that has a tendency to be somewhat overlooked by the mainstream media (although let's face it; it's probably not something you'll pick up on unless you've played the game with people you genuinely like), but the Times also covered the WorldWide Invitational here, so they're no strangers to Blizzard events. While there's no information in the article that's really new, it's an interesting and generally positive perspective on the convention.

Thanks to James and Rhys for writing in!

This Friday and Saturday, Worldofwar.net will be holding two "level 1 character" race events on as-yet undisclosed U.S. servers. 5 Worldwide Invitational cards, entitling the bearer to a Wrath of the Lich King beta key and a Tyrael pet, will be awarded to the winners. The character you enter in the race must be level 1, cannot have any weapons or armor equipped, and will be disqualified if you die, disconnect, or try to sneak any stat-enhancing item on the toon. Apart from saying that they'll be holding the races at 6:00 PM server time on both days, they're staying mum on which server or starting area they'll be using in an effort to minimize potential cheating or a mob of ganking spectators.

Two things: I'm not sure how they're planning on splitting 5 WWI cards among the winner/s of two races, so you'll probably have a slightly higher chance of winning a card in one out of the two events. Secondly, although they haven't given out server names, they do say that both races will take place at "18:00 PST (server time)," so it's possible that both will happen on Pacific servers. They'll post the server names and starting areas on their site before each race starts, so check back, and good luck!

From the 2008 Worldwide Invitational, we learned of a new way that we'll all be grinding faction reputation come the expansion. Namely, you will be able to become a faction's Champion.

This is not a permanent change, and you are not stuck with only one faction, Instead, you simply put on the tabard and la! You are the new Champion.

We were told that if you run a Coilfang dungeon wearing a Lower City tabard, you will gain the usual reputation for the Cenarion Expedition from the dungeon, as well as Lower City reputation. Supposedly, the tabards, usually acquired at exalted, will be moved to friendly or honored.

While this makes me and my hard-earned tabard collection a bit sore, the prospect of earning reputation for any faction that I need, without running their dungeons over and over, is quite appealing. Here are the Champions we know of so far:

1. Argent Champion
2. Ebon Champion
3. Champion of the Kirin Tor
4. Wyrmrest Champion

The descriptions are all the same. For example, "You champion the cause of the Argent Crusade. All reputation gains while in level 80 dungeons will be applied to your standing with them."

To me, this seems to call the original quotation into question, as the current description makes it sound as though, instead of gaining reputation from the dungeon, and from the tabard, your dungeon reputation will simply count toward whichever faction's tabard you are wearing.

Of course, that is still mightily handy. We'll be able to run the dungeons that contain the gear we need, while acquiring the reputation we desire.

Blogger DeSlisser was in Paris recently when he came upon a strange sight in a store: A comic book called "WaoW" that covered the journey of a newb in the world of "Razemoth" as he looks for a dungeon to level in. It's very definitely suppose to be Azeroth, and even the dungeon he eventually finds is clearly the Deadmines. The comic book, however, does not seem to be an official Blizzard product.

Of course, we've seen pirated Warcraft items before, but this would be the first foray I've heard into the world of pirate comics. The phenomenon is widespread enough in Japan that it has its own convention simply for the selling of these books that, according to many, violate Intellectual Property rights.

So perhaps Blizzard is getting to that point too. Will they crack down on comic books like "WaoW?" Should they? After all, they don't crack down on WoW fanart. But then again, most WoW fanartists don't try to sell their work in bulk either.

[via Tobold]

This one's been flying under our radar for a while, but I'm not sure why -- I happen to be one of the affected. Still, while everyone was spending the past few days worrying about tickets for this year's BlizzCon, a whole other set of folks were worrying about last year's BlizzCon. Specifically, the beta keys they received there. Originally, they were all told by Belfaire that there was going to be a wave of invites after August 1st that included people who'd recieved beta keys from Dell, or for attending BlizzCon '07 or this year's WWI. But now we're almost two weeks past that date, and we (I was one of the folks who entered a key from BlizzCon '07) haven't seen any beta keys at all yet.

Last Thursday, about a week ago, Belfaire acknowledged there was a problem on the forums, and asked people to enter their names if they'd input their beta keys and hadn't recieved a beta email (here's the BlizzCon thread, and here's the Dell thread). But there's been no answer since then, and I certainly haven't recieved a key at all. In fact, we've heard from people who got invited to the beta through the random opt-ins, which means these keys we paid for haven't done thing number one for us.

To tell the truth, I'm not that concerned about it -- I really enjoy seeing new content on the live realms rather than on the beta or test server, and there's certainly enough Wrath beta news coming through here on WoW Insider about the beta to keep me satisfied. But the beta is only going on for so long, and every day that passes without invites sent to Blizzard's biggest fans (the ones who've spent money on the Dell deal and attended Blizzard's invites) is more of the beta key wasted. I doubt we'll be able to use them again, so it's a shame Blizzard hasn't let us use them yet.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

If you're not completely holed up in a cave somewhere, you're probably aware that some big sports event called the Olympics is happening in August. Of course, August also marks the start of a new season for our friends over at WoW Radio, who are holding a contest to celebrate their onslaught of shows. In keeping with the Olympics, WoW Radio is calling their August contest "Pass the Torch", and are giving away twenty (!) Worldwide Invitational cards as prizes. Just in case you didn't know, those cards contain the codes for a key to the Wrath Beta and a mini-Tyrael pet.

How do you join? Simple. Listen to their radio shows! Starting August 8 (or what the Chinese consider to be the lucky 08/08/08), five of their radio shows will be their torch-bearers. During each show, there'll be an 'Olympic ring' -- you'll know them when you hear them, according to WoW Radio -- containing a secret word. The five secret words will form a phrase, which you should then send to their e-mail address to be entered in their grand prize draw. Winners will be announced on the 15th of August on Blue Plz! Head on over to WoW Radio now and keep an ear out for those secret words!

On the WoW forums this morning, there was renewed gurgling about the desire to be able to respec more easily, specifically between PvP specs and raiding specs. Blue Blizzard poster, Bornakk, reconfirmed what had already been discussed at the Worldwide Invitational -- that the developers are working on a way to have two swappable talent specs. They are still working out the details but it sounds like something that's definitely coming because the Blues could've easily let this thread just die of atrophy.

I'm not sure I agree with some posters who say that respeccing is a "huge pain." It's an inconvenience, yes, but then so is flying from one zone to another or waiting in line for battlegrounds. Also, as for the cost, 50 gold is merely a grain of sand to someone at level 70. (And if it isn't then, dude, what the heck are you doing out there? Buzzing on Bash Ale all day?) Conversely, how would having two different specs at your disposal make the game "too easy," as other commenters posted? My eyes are rolling so much that they may come right out of my head. (This is exactly why I try not to read much of the forums.) There was much musing about how the respec mechanic might be best implemented -- by player posters, not by Blues -- including ideas for 24 hour cool-downs, respec token systems, higher costs, lower costs and, for some reason, portals and summoning.

Regardless of what mass opinions are, Blizzard's developers seem to be looking hard at what the ramifications of twin specs would do to the game's balance. They obviously spend a lot of time studying how PvP and PvE are played and seem to have an affinity for splitting these two gameplay styles and I don't think they will make it as simple as a mouse-click in Wrath.

Numerous reports are coming in that the Wrath Beta keys are making their way to players now. Attendees of last year's BlizzCon in Anaheim, California, and the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France, received a card with a code for a "future Blizzard title" as part of their goody bags. Wryxian confirmed over at the official forums that the said title was Wrath of the Lich King and urged everyone to register their codes immediately. Players who do so will be prompted to enter the codes from the cards as well as their e-mail address, as Beta access information is sent through e-mail.

Reader Phi mentions that it doesn't matter when the codes were claimed. She registered her code right after BlizzCon last year while her boyfriend registered only yesterday after Blizzard's announcement, and both received their keys today. If you're one of the lucky few who attended either Blizzard event or managed to snag a beta code through other channels like eBay, registering the code should see you receiving invites in the mail. WoW Insider's Elizabeth Harper, who attended both, received two invites to the Beta eight minutes apart from each other. The official e-mail from prompts players to follow the step-by-step instructions over at Blizzard's official Beta page. Thanks to everyone who tipped this in!

I was lucky enough to go to E3 this year with the Joystiq crew last week, and while I had planned to cover some stories about WoW for you guys, the biggest story I came back with was: that there was no story. I didn't hear or see World of Warcraft mentioned once. When Blizzard said they were not showing at E3, they meant it -- I didn't even hear a competitor mention their name.

There was one mention of Blizzard at the Activision press conference on Tuesday. Mike Griffith name-dropped Blizzard once just to say the merger had happened, but there was nothing at all about World of Warcraft or any of Blizzard's properties. And I had planned to try out the Novint Falcon controller with WoW. I did try it out, and it is an interesting, if expensive, PC game controller, but Novint told me they didn't have it working in a form they wanted to show off with World of Warcraft yet.

Kind of strange that the biggest game in the world didn't get a single mention at the biggest game show in the world, but then again, it's not that weird when you consider that E3 has scaled way down by magnitudes from past years. Companies aren't as interested in the event when there are many, many other ways to market and show off their games to journalists, and considering that Blizzard has invested heavily in not one but two giant events of their own this year, it's no wonder they don't want to spend any money at E3. Shame that we couldn't bring you more WoW coverage from LA last week, but we'll be back there in October, and there'll be plenty of news to report then.

Having been to the Worldwide Invitational, we were hot to turn in our key that gave us a pet Tyrael. Running hither and yon in the Undercity, we finally found the NPC for the turn in, said the magic words and voila! A floating, lightning-winged avenging angel was ours for everyone to ooh and aah over.

Well, kinda. It doesn't really do anything. There are no animations other than floating. Don't believe us? Check out the video above. At least Sleepy Willy had the good manners to fall asleep occasionally.

EDIT: Apparently he will dance with you if you target him and use the /dance emote.