Posts with tag expansions

First off, we know that game balance is an eternal goal. As the game evolves and becomes more complex (as it does every expansion, because new abilities are introduced and new classes or races make their debut), balancing them all for every role they can fill and every aspect of the game (Arena PvP, BGs, 5-man instances, raiding) becomes ever more complicated. Abilities that seem minor in impact can mushroom in importance due to synergy with other talents or abilities. As an example, Vengeance in PvP became important enough to cause it to be turned off, as gear improved and health pools rose.

This has been the case in World of Warcraft since its debut. Heck, thanks to Indalamar, warriors got nerfed before the game went live. Balance is ephemeral. Your class may be on top one day, but your day will end. Anyone who's tanked for the past six years can attest to the roller coaster of which class is best at which aspect of the role. There was a time where paladins were the undisputed kings of AoE tanking, a time before Death and Decay or Blood and Thunder.

Community Manager Bashiok made an interesting announcement this morning -- as of the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion, World of Warcraft will no longer run on machines using Windows 2000 as an operating system. Microsoft itself ceased supporting this version in 2010. Those who are currently using Windows 2000 should upgrade before Mists is released, if you'd like to continue playing WoW.

One of the big benefits to playing World of Warcraft has always been that it can be played on a variety of systems, from the exceptionally small and outdated to the current, top-of-the-line models. I always found that a fascinating phenomenon, and it made good sense -- after all, if you want the max number of players able to play your game, you want to make it available with the widest software and technology possible. Yet there's a drawback to this; if you want to continually make that content available for older systems, there's only so far you can go updating content.

As a game that just celebrated its seven-year anniversary, WoW absolutely needs to keep updating in order to remain competitive. With new MMOs coming out all the time, a game that is seven years old starts to lose its shine. Continuous updates make sure that it stays just as fresh as it did in 2004. You can't keep those updates rolling if you're trying to support an operating system that is now 12 years old. I think, however, we're safely in the territory where most people have moved beyond Windows 2000, so this shouldn't affect a huge majority of players, particularly when Microsoft itself has already phased out support for the operating system. What this does do, however, is make me look forward to Mists of Pandaria and what it has in store.

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Blizzard has just announced permanent price cuts to the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm expansions in the EU for 2012. What seems to be a push for easier accessibility to WoW, Wrath now costs only €19.99, down from €34.99 and Cataclysm is now €29.99, down from €34.99. Whether or not these deals are coming to the United States is not known at this time, but I can't really understand why they wouldn't. Getting your WoW account up to date has never been cheaper, and Blizzard is making sure the barrier to entry is as low as possible for new players.

Permanent price cuts for WoW expansions in 2012

Great news for all Blizzard fans! From today, our latest games are available at retail and on the Blizzard Store at new, permanently low prices. You can now get Wrath of the Lich King for a mere €19.99 and Cataclysm for just €29.99. There's never been a better time to grab the games you might have missed out on before. Just click here and celebrate the New Year by taking advantage of our new reduced prices. Still don´t have World of Warcraft? Now you can get the full game and all expansions for cheaper than ever before.

Want to check out StarCraft II? If you haven't yet taken advantage of our great new price for StarCraft II, you can click here to get yours right away!

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Blizzard has always been good to the customers who play World of Warcraft. The game is regularly updated through patches, and we can count on an expansion every other year. However, this may not be the case for much longer. In a recent interview with GameInformer, Tom Chilton said, "Traditionally we've only been able to do an expansion every two years. We're really hoping to make a meaningful difference in that."

This comment has already sparked a debate among the WoW community, dividing the playerbase into two sides: those who think this is a great thing and those who don't. For some, getting a new expansion more quickly means more content to explore, more bosses to down, and apparently, more pandas to cuddle. The others, however, view this as a negative -- not because of the content but because we have to pay for every expansion released, on top of the monthly subscription.

Personally, I see both sides. While Blizzard has recently promised us quicker content patches, I really enjoy the excitement of a new expansion.

So which way would you prefer? Quicker, large expansions, with massive updates to the game? Or perhaps a faster delivery of patches, with a steady stream of new content?

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If you're curious about the Wrathgate expansion for the WoW Trading Card Game, you can get up to three overviews of it from the official site. These overviews, written by winners of the Wrathgate contest this April, give you a sense of the place this expansion to the TCG has both in terms of the card game and the larger WoW universe. William Brinkman covers both the Argent Crusade and Flying Mounts, while David Lyons discusses how the in-game Wrathgate experience is translated to the card game. If you're a player of the TCG or are just curious about how WoW makes the transition to a different format, go give them a read.

"The 11th set in the World of Warcraft TCG, Wrathgate features 220 new cards straight from Northrend and the new Argent Crusade faction. Yes, players can recruit figures from Warcraft lore like Highlord Tirion Fordring for the battle against the Scourge. Also, players can use new Wrathgate crafting materials to forge brand new gear for their TCG heroes.

Each booster pack contains 19 game cards. As with previous sets, players have a chance to open one of three new Loot cards randomly inserted into Wrathgate booster packs. The codes on the Loot cards are redeemed for cosmetic upgrades to World of Warcraft® MMORPG characters. The loot cards in Wrathgate are Landro's Gift, Statue Generator, and Blazing Hippogryph. The latter is another TCG exclusive mount -- a flying hippogryph to set the skies on fire."

In the good old days, expansions came around once in a blue moon. They were the stuff of legend which invited almost two years of hype and intrigue. You paid your dollars/pounds/euros/yuan, and you got your new classes, those shiny new zones and those ten extra levels. But, with patch 3.0.2 (aka Echoes of Doom) we got something new, we got transition. Yes, this was the patch where we got a sampling of Wrath designed to tease players waiting on tender hooks and also keep interest for that final week until the expansions hit properly.

Given Blizzard's shift in how they treat patches, now geared towards larger mini expansion style updates like patch 2.4 and patch 3.2, there's definitely something changing in the way we get new installments of the game. After all, there's as much hype about every mini expansion-like patch, from the new areas, class buffs/nerfs and weapons to the smaller changes involving the UI. Shiny expansion special editions aside, do you think it would ever be possible to have expansions become automatically downloaded massive patch updates over a standalone disc or download that you have to buy every two years? What do you think, readers?

Ethic at Kill Ten Rats has a post up about something that a lot of you have probably been through: more and more I'm hearing about people returning to the game. I've been playing ever since I signed up a few years ago, but that's really only because I'm writing about it -- I'm pretty ADD when it comes to games, so left on my own, I probably would have walked away from WoW a long time ago. But Blizzard is really good at bringing players back by tweaking the game in exactly the way they woud like. I feel like if I had left, I would have definitely come back in for a while, if not with Burning Crusade than definitely with Wrath.

Of course, Ethic's issues aren't really with deciding to return or not: he's having more issues actually trying to get his old accounts back. There's a laundry list of rules and limits to contend with, between dealing with having or not having the expansions, the limits on the Scroll of Resurrection program and the trial accounts, and dodging all of Blizzard's various limits on how to start and use new accounts to the game. Man -- if I had left and was planning on coming back, and I read Ethic's post, I might not even bother.

But quite a few people have come back, and I'd guess that even though there are confusing things about trying to find your way back into the game, a good number of you have done it. I'd like to know, so here's a poll: how many of you have left and come back, and how many times?

A couple months ago, we asked if you could add one new game mechanic to WoW, what would it be? This morning, I'd like to ask what you'd pick if you could add one new feature. Some common requests:

• Player/guild housing
• Ability to be in multiple guilds simultaneously
• Ability to start a character at a higher level than 1 (like Death Knights)
• Mounted combat
• Cosmetic gear (ability to have one set of gear equipped, and another set displayed)

I'm sure there are more commonly desired features that I just haven't thought of yet.

Me, I'm really excited about the PvE arenas that I hope are coming in patch 3.2. Aside from that, I suppose I'd like to be able to start alts at a high level. I like leveling well enough, but 1-40 is simply tedious. Characters haven't really come into their own yet, and those zones are pretty underdeveloped. What new feature would you want to add to WoW?

Ah, another Sunday afternoon! Well, technically this was posted precisely at noon, which isn't the afternoon. But you're probably not reading it at the exact second It was posted, so you are reading it in the afternoon. Right? Right. Now, with that settled...

Vinicius O. E. asked...

What happened to the dance studios?

MTV's Multiplayer blog has an interview with Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime (who is apparently sitting pretty with the elven ladies after last week's big expansion launch). He says that he sees no end to the expansions -- Blizzard has told us before that as long as they have ideas (and players), they'll keep making content for this game. He also says that they're happy with the subscription model in the United States -- although we'd imagine that both of those things might get rethought if Blizzard's subscription numbers were going the other way. For now, though, while things are headed up, Morhaime sounds pretty happy with the way things are.

Finally, they ask about an iPhone app, and Morhaime says Blizzard is working on connecting mobile devices up to the game, but he also specifically says they're not looking at a stand-alone app. So maybe a mobile version of the Armory? I'd love to see an iPhone app, as we've said before, with mail or auction house functionality, but maybe Blizzard doesn't see the majority of their audience on the iPhone anyway. Then again, their Mac guys always need something to do...

Thundgot over on the EU forums says there's a pretty drastic solution incoming to the busy servers incoming: Blizzard is going to offer free server transfers from high pop servers to low pop, so if you've really been driven nuts by all the queues and lag lately, this might be just what you need. On the other hand, don't jump into anything too quickly -- traffic problems are pretty common, especially when big patches (and, you know, expansions) come down, and odds are that once the expansion actually releases, things will die back down after a little while.

Of course, if you just don't want to wait, and don't have any particular ties to the server you happen to be on, then by all means, keep an eye out for the transfers. We're not quite sure which servers will be affected yet, but We Hate PUGs saw Quel'thelas on the list already along with a long list of high pop realms, so while we'll probably see more servers added to the low pop side, the high pop side there now is probably a fairly good indicator of the realms Blizzard sees as trouble. If you're on one of those realms and ready to transfer, sit tight and wait for the announcement today, help is on the way.

James G. has been debating an issue with his guildies for a while now, and he wanted to put it to you, the readers of WoW Insider:

Basically, Blizzard said shortly after the release of Burning Crusade that they would ideally have one expansion released each year. Do you feel they can keep up with this or that they will ease back between expansion releases in future?

He says that Blizzard has been learning and improving the whole time the game's been out about how to make content and release it, and that they should be more than capable of making an expansion every year or so. His guildies, however, point to the big gap between 2.1 and 2.4, and claim that even if Blizzard can release content faster, there still needs to be time for people to play it.

What say you, readers? Obviously, Blizzard is likely releasing content as fast as they can (and let's be fair, no one is really holding them to that "once-a-year" thing -- their games are quality enough that we're ready to play them "when they're ready" anyway). But is Blizzard releasing content too fast for people to play through it, too slow to keep people interested, or just right?

Previously on Ask WoW Insider, you answered questions. Want your question answered? Send it along to ask@wow.com, and you might see it here next week.

We kind of already figured this (and who is really jumping into Northrend without first having finished up with Outland anyway?), but Datth has confirmed it on the forums: in order to install Wrath of the Lich King, you'll have to have Burning Crusade installed as well. Not a huge surprise, but just in case you were recruiting someone to come up to level 80 with you, make sure to tell them to buy all three versions of the game when Wrath comes out, because they'll need them.

The bigger question is: when will get a battlechest? It took about seven months for Blizzard to put Burning Crusade and World of Warcraft in the same box, but can we expect them to do it faster with Wrath of the Lich King? Probably not -- while the price may drop a bit on the current Battlechest (if you wanted to jump into the game the day of Wrath's release, it would cost you $70 total, and our guess is that that's about $10 more than Blizzard will end up charging), odds are that anyone getting in now would have to buy that and Wrath to play.

Of course, odds are that you've made up your mind about buying the expansion anyway. Anyone out there still playing with vanilla WoW? As much as Blizzard has been about skipping past all that 1-60 content as fast as possible, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they even tweaked the subscription pricing on that end to try and pull more people into buying the expansions. They already will let you try the game and first expansion for free, and you'd have to think eventually they'll try to convince the last few demographics holding out to join up as well.