Posts with tag Vaneck

Vaneck over the on EU forums just announced the 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament. Last year's arena tournament was a big success, and even had some appearances by some WoW Insider staff and a few GMs.

The tournament realm will open up next week on February 17th. The global tournament will have cash prizes over $200,000.

The tournament realms will have level 80 characters in the latest epic gear from Wrath of the Lich King. We don't know exactly what the gear is yet, but we'll let you know as soon as we have it figured out.

And perhaps the best part?

• The top teams will contend for the "Vanquisher" title for their live characters.
• All participants "can earn" an Armored Murloc in-game pet for their live characters.

Updated 1:54 p.m. EST: Armored Murloc pet picture is now up.

Updated 3:03 p.m. EST: US participation confirmed.

Sunday's Tournament Test Realm stress test was, in my opinion, a huge success. Despite the lag, the occasional crash or kick, and a one-hour maintenance downtime, the server held up quite well considering just how many people were bombing around on it. After maintenance, the lag improved quite a bit, and I'm guessing that Blizzard learned a fair amount that will help them to design the arena tournament realm.

Of course, interaction with the GMs, fighting spawned bosses dropping orange epics, being polymorphed into all sorts of things, receiving rare mounts, and reading through /general, /say, and /yell, not to mention tells, were the real highlights from yesterday. While Alex has already given a fairly detailed account of our adventures, I have some stories of my own to tell.

Blue poster Vaneck announced on the European Forums that Alterac Valley would be undergoing some major gameplay changes in Patch 2.3.

In order to emphasize strategy more in AV, they are introducing the concept of "reinforcement count". Both teams will begin with a starting number of reinforcements which can be reduced in various amounts according to what is lost. A team loses when its reinforcement count is reduced to zero.

The death of Drek'Thar or Vanndar will still end the game, as all reinforcements will automatically be eliminated. Losing towers and Galvangar or Belinda will cause significant amounts of reinforcements to be lost. And staying alive will now be very important as player deaths will reduce the reinforcement count by one.

To quote Vaneck:

Defending your own teammates, towers, and key NPCs will be an important aspect of maintaining team resources and achieving victory in Alterac Valley.

More on the AV changes after the jump...