Posts with tag bc

Rare mobs are one of my favorite unexpected pleasures in WoW. It's such a thrill to be questing or grinding along and see that silver dragon; it adds a lot of flavor to what could otherwise be some boring runs through out-of-the-way zones. In fact, that's an upside to the current depopulation of Azeroth: I find many more rare mobs, since no-one's been by to kill them in an hour or two. Fun fight, interesting mob, automatic green.

However, when Burning Crusade came out, it was discovered that all the Outland rare mobs were also elite. There was a blue post around the time that defended the decision as allowing them to put better loot on the mobs, making them walking treasure chests (BC also has no world treasure chests, sadly Thanks; I guess there are still new things for me to learn in BC) . But it did make them basically unsoloable, which takes a lot of the excitement out of spotting one, at least for me: by the time I get four more people to come help me out, I don't really care any more.

Jeff Kaplan, the lead game designer, posted in the forums under his username Tigole that Blizzard will be speeding up leveling in the 60 to 70 bracket just as they sped up the 20 to 60 bracket. This has long been rumored and it's great to see this get implemented.

Initial reports tell us the amount of experience points necessary to progress to each level has been decreased by 30% (for the 60 to 70 range only). Additional posters are reporting that mobs which give 500xp on the live server are now giving 600xp on the beta server. There doesn't seem to be any increase in the XP rewarded by quests yet, but this might be a future change.

Kaplan asks everyone to provide feedback on the change (if you're in the beta), and it looks like they've got his ear for the time being. So if you're in the beta and want to weigh in on the subject, now's the time.

Many thanks to the various users who submitted this news tip.

So recently, Tobold was saying that excitement around Wrath of the Lich King is visibly much less than the excitement that led up to the release of Burning Crusade. People are tired out by the 2 year wait, WoW isn't innovating, WoW isn't adding the content fast enough: there's just so many reasons that the Wrath of the Lich King is being greeted with ennui instead of excitement.

My first thought upon reading that: Wait, people aren't excited over WoTLK?

One of the biggest and most successful features of Burning Crusade has been the inclusion of Badges of Justice. Especially in 2.4, these badges have allowed even relatively casual players to get their hands on gear that comes close to the same stuff raiders are able to pull out of end game instances. While the system seems to have been mostly a success, there's still some question as to how it will evolve in WoTLK. The current 2.4 badge loot seems to have been created in part to allow a smoother gear transition between BC and WoTLK for both casuals and ubers, with badges dropping out of 10-man instances and the most powerful badge gear yet. But the question is, will this continue in WoTLK? Will we see badges off of Naxxramas' 10-man version (perhaps earning it the name Badgeramas)? Will we see loot purchasable from a Dalaran vendor that will be comparable to what raiders are pulling out of Icecrown Glacier? Or will they dial it back, or maybe not even include the badge loot system at all?

Right now there is no WotLK beta, there is no chance you'll get in the alpha if you're not already in it, and there is no email that's going to be coming to your inbox anytime soon about it. But when it comes, it's going to make you one happy gamer. This is a very important thing for people to understand, especially with the flood of fake emails lately.

Blizzard will make an announcement on their forums and/or their homepage letting all of us know that WotLK beta invites are going out. The email that you'll get if you're lucky enough to get invited will be sent from an @blizzard.com address, will come through the blizzard.com servers (you can check the extended email headers in your email program to see this). The email will have tons of identifiable information in it that only points to blizzard.com or worldofwarcraft.com and nowhere else.

For a reference, let's that a look at what the Burning Crusade beta email looked like that I got back in 2006

And Belfaire doesn't care.

Reader Kyver tipped us off to a gem of a post on the Customer Service Forums today, titled "I'm a WoW Widow" (moderately NSFW, PG-13 rating). The story goes like this: A girl, Missmegan, lost her boyfriend to the Burning Crusades [sic]. They used to play together horde side, but after buying the expansion he turned to the alliance and is dedicated to his guild mates. All is lost, as he's no longer interested in his girlfriend's "assets" and rambles like a two-year old.

Of course this makes our forum posting protagonist upset, and she needs her boyfriend back. Now obviously this is a joke. At least I hope it is. And Katie (my girlfriend), if you're reading this I promise I'll never let it get this bad. I mean, I only play for 5 hours a day, not 13 as the boyfriend in the story does. And I make money with all this, so it's okay, right? Sweetie? Darling? Honey... D'oh....

Tagging the first response to this thread is Belfaire The Mighty, with the simple response "Dear WoW Widow, It's actually Burning Crusade. Yours, Belfaire." This had myself and the other writers here laughing. We had to share it.

So dear readers, I ask you, are you a WoW widow?

According to numerous reports and several personal experiences, much of the Burning Crusade content is offline on several servers, both in the U.S. and the E.U.. When attempting to access a character in any of these locations you will be presented with an error that says "World Server Down."

This is no doubt from the mass of people who have flocked to the Isle of Quel'Danas in order to see the new content. While the realms and content are being bumpy tonight, checkout our extensive collection of patch 2.4 information.

I'll update this post as the night goes on with the latest realm announcements. Stay tuned!

Update: Realms are all online, although a tad bumpy.

I don't get it. I'm 70, have lots of nice purples, know the game well enough, and have even done Onyxia dozens upon dozens upon dozens of times back in the pre-BC days. But why then does she inevitably present a problem for me and my friends?

It's probably because she is bugged. And not just bugged, REALLY bugged.

Two groups have now gone in and tried to defeat her. Each time the first attempt was a failure as people relearned not to stand too close to each other (Forsythe run to the center!), run to the side when the rains fire down (<-- 2N, 2N - 1 -->), and all those other small tidbits that make the fight what it is. However when it reached the second attempt, she started acting strange. First, she wouldn't target anyone or let anyone tank her – she just walked around her lair and jerked around a bit. We could still damage her, but that was it. And really it was only the ranged and my crossbow that were able to do any damage (more dots!).

There are two important things to realize from this newly discovered information. First, it shows that Blizzard is hard at work on Wrath of the Lich King, and is already starting to include content in the patch files. We saw this same behavior in patch 2.0 with Jewelcrafting recipes.

Many of us that have played the game every day over the years have developed some habits of sort. One of the habits that I've found myself doing night after night is logging off in the same spot. For me, this spot is at the staff vendor in the Aldor section of Shattrath. I find myself logging off here almost every night since I hearth back to Shat when I'm done raiding, and then go and repair immediately (less I get yelled at for not being fully repaired).

I can imagine that there are some better spots than others to log off at. In particular the PvP servers I'm sure pose certain pragmatic limitations on where you can disembark from the game. In the PvE world, I could (if I wanted to) log off anywhere in the wild. Save for the wandering aggressive mob, I would be just fine. However, I don't think this would be too good in a PvP environment.

One year ago today, we the huddled, shivering masses (well, shivering in many parts of the country, anyway) got our hands on Burning Crusade, the first ever WoW expansion. Blizzard started saying shortly thereafter that they would be attempting to make one expansion per year, but for whatever reason, that has not come to pass: Wrath of the Lich King is not looking particularly close.

Enough, however, of what didn't happen. Let's turn our attention to some things that did happen that fateful day last January:

• Several of us here at WoW Insider posted our midnight mall pilgrimage pictures, including Barb in Ithaca, Mark in Chicago, Elizabeth W. in Raleigh, myself in Gainesville, and Paul in frigid Saskatoon
• Everyone discovered a brand-new version of Barrens chat
• Many realms were iffy
• Horde and Alliance had a bit of a cease-fire
• We started speculating all over again about what eventually became Wrath

Do you remember your BC launch experience?

[Thanks, Biddy]

Most games have a beginning and an end -- if people want more, the developers produce a sequel. But games like WoW are different, of course, because everyone is paying by the month in order to play together, and the developers are constantly adding some new content revising the old.

As time goes by, though, a rift appears between people who have been playing a long time and people who are just getting started. Not only does the game development company have to make some hard decisions about whether it's more important to keep people playing every month or to get new people to start from the beginning, but the old players have to figure out how the new ones are going to fit into the social system they've developed.

The Burning Crusade tried to appeal to both sorts of gamers, with added content for both ends of the player community, but Wrath of the Lich King is taking another direction, with most of its content only for people who are ready to leave Outland behind. But the patch 2.3 changes reveal a different strategy for attracting new WoW players: rather than adding new content to attract new players, Blizzard can just make the old content faster, more streamlined, and get new players into the new higher-level content more reliably. Will this keep new players coming? Does Blizzard even need new players, financially speaking, or are they content to just try and keep all the existing players subscribing for as long as possible?

Either way, a more vital issue is at stake: As the WoW community has gotten older, we have noticed some old-time WoW players like to complain about "noobs" a lot, in a way that doesn't leave any room for new people to join in on the activities. For a newcomer, it feels like an exclusionist attitude. The "noobs" are running around in all the wrong gear, using all the wrong strategies, precisely because no one has interacted with them enough for them to learn how things are done here. Some aspects of WoW are not at all easy or intuitive, and it's counterproductive to blame the noobs instead of reaching out and lending a helping hand where appropriate.

Welcome to Ask WoW Insider where we publish one of your questions every week. Last time we looked at whether or not healing can be as competitive as dpsing, and this week we return our attention to one of everybody's favorite topics: loot. Sephran writes:

I started karazhan about 4 months ago. I was a resto druid and I was looking for that Shard of the Virtuous. The 1st time we rolled, another resto druid got it.. she promptly left the guild the following week... The 2nd time I passed it on to someone else who needed it A LOT more then I did. The 3rd time.. lost the roll again. Once I transfered guilds I thought it would be better.. but alas.. it dropped with more new people to kara.. I once again passed the hammer to another person for a super mega upgrade to them. The 5th time.. it dropped and I finnally won it!!!

Tops my Happiest moments in WoW, thats for sure. Then on Opera my priest friend finally got her Masquerade gown that she had never seen drop since the 1st time I got it 4 months ago. So I'm wondering what TBC drop has escaped you? Any good stories to go along with why you haven't gotten it?

We looked at this question shortly before BC came out, "in memoriam" for items we might truly never see now that focus would be shifting to all the new gear that would await in Outland. So now that the expansion is out, what gear has been eluding you? What is that one drop you just can't seem to get, or finally found its way to you after a long and strange journey?

We need your questions! Send us your inquiries for next week to ask AT wowinsider DOT com.

Fridays are a time for early happy hour quiet contemplation and reflection upon the past, and in that spirit we're taking a look back at some of the best posts from over the lifespan of Ask WoW Insider. Now that we're all older and wiser -- who *did* end up being the top PvP classes at 70?

• Best duo for PvP or grinding
  "What team of classes make the best duo for PVP or for grinding?"
• Top PvP classes at level 70
  Just after Burning Crusade came out, we speculated on which classes would dominate in PvP. Were we right? Would you change the answer you gave then?
• Best ways to make money in Burning Crusade
  "What are some good ways of making money for levels 60-70 in Burning Crusade? Are there people making money from jewelcrafting yet, should I pick that up? What about good mobs to grind or drops that sell well to vendors or on the AH?"
• Best way to get instance invites
  "What are your tips and tricks for convincing a group you've got the goods despite not having seen the inside of the dungeon?"
• Why are you overpowered?
  "Dig deep, self-examine and admit it: what makes your class overpowered?"
• How's WoW performance on a Mac?
  "I play Wow on a PC, and am looking towards a new computer purchase. One thing that influences my purchase is how well WoW will run on my new computer. I'm leaning towards a Mac, but how well does WoW run on a Mac?"
• Best way to power level alts
  "What's your strategy for the quickest power leveling? How do you maximize your time with your alts?"
• How would you design your own battleground?
  "What if you could design your own battleground? What would you do different or better than what is currently in the game?"
• When is it fair to upgrade an epic?
  "All DKP ideas aside, when is it fair to upgrade an epic over an epic?"
• Best healing class
  "Which class would you roll for a purely healing role? Which would you roll for a powerfully healing hybrid who might want to take on other roles from time to time? Relatedly, which healing class is the worst?"
• Best DPS class
  "Which classes can dish out the most DPS and which ones make the least amount of DPS?"
• Favorite WoW podcasts
  "There are a ton of WoW-themed podcasts out there now -- which would you recommend? What are your favorites?"
• Great ding stories
  "Any fun or interesting stories to tell about hitting the level cap? Or more generally, any memorable or unusual dings at any level?"

We see that look in your eye, and we know it means you want to send us questions. Ask WoW Insider needs 'em -- send them to us at ask AT wowinsider DOT com!