Posts with tag rewards

Blizzard has posted a more detailed explanation of the revamped Scroll of Resurrection feature, allowing current players to send their friends seven free days to come back to the game, a free bump for one character to level 80, and a free server and faction change to your friend's new server. For the current player, you'll be given a faction-specific spectral mount if your resurrected friend pays for a month. All in all, it's an ambitious package to entice old players to return to Azeroth.

These new clarifications make sure that players understand the rules of the promotion and that this is a limited time deal. Blizzard will be letting everyone know with ample time before the promotion ends, but if you're interested in the mount, it might behoove you to get your Scroll of Resurrection out of the way early. What that says to me is a potential for rotating rewards for the Scroll of Resurrection. Multiple rewards or a new reward each year is a great way to get players to do their own grassroots advertising to get old players back into the game to sate their collector compulsions.

Hit the jump for the full list of clarifications.

Seven years is a long time to be alive in the video game world. When you talk about games you played for seven years, you usually talk about WoW, Mario Kart, Goldeneye 64, and EverQuest. One thing that I have always felt was missing from Blizzard that synced up with one of my fondest memories of the MMO genre was a yearly loyalty program with rewards for all players to partake in. We get this somewhat during the Winterveil holiday with each year's exclusive gift, but I'm talking about a totally different type of loyalty reward scheme.

One of my fondest memories of any MMO ever was receiving my Ultima Online veteran rewards after a few years of play. While I can't remember the specifics of the transactions, either I was gifted my loyalty rewards or I got to choose based on seniority (it's been a long time, holy moly), but I went home with some cool items. The coolest of the bunch was a black dye tub, an item that had unlimited uses and could change any dyeable clothing item the darkest shade of black in the game. These black dye tubs were very rare and made for great items to sell at high prices down the line when they slowly became more and more rare. Maybe if you're good, I'll tell you about the time that I stole a black dye tub in the middle of Vesper bank -- I hope the four of you who thought that was impressive are smiling to yourselves.

Many WoW players were shocked and confused to learn that they had a free copy of World of Warcraft Classic (it's the new "official" vanilla) sitting in their inbox starting last week. In a push for more subscribers before the big patch 4.2 push, tons of free copies of the game were distributed out to veterans to give to friends to introduce them to World of Warcraft. Not only is the game free, but these veteran reward accounts come with 30 day subscriptions for your buddies.

Nethaera commented on the veteran emails being sent out -- they are not scams and are being sent to players who selected to receive news and offers from Blizzard. If you haven't gotten an veteran rewards email, check your spam folder or contact Blizzard support. I postulated on a recent Lawbringer what the world would look like with free WoW, and this seems like a good first step to getting more WoW into more hands.

WoW Veteran Reward free copies

The veteran award email and offer are legitimate and are being sent out to veterans who have previously opted in to receiving news and special offers from Blizzard Entertainment. We may run more of these types of promotions in the future, so if this is something you are interested in, we suggest opting in as soon as possible so you don't miss out.

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The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we are still not sure if we can be bribed, but have reached the conclusion that others might be.

This week we return for the conclusion of our series examining the likely impact of the new Call to Arms system debuting in patch 4.1. If you're looking for last week's article, you'll find that here: Shifting Perspectives: Tanks, bribes, and player behavior.

To summarize the observations and argument of the first article as quickly as possible, Cataclysm returned players to the difficulty of The Burning Crusade instancing model without the benefits that tanks gained from building a reputation as competent players -- namely, the reasonable expectation that groups would cooperate with kill orders and any requests for crowd control. The dungeon finder, arguably a tool better suited to the ease and speed of Wrath of the Lich King heroics, has left tanks in an unfortunate position: They now attempt to lead groups through more difficult content with the unreliable vote kick as their sole defense against obstreperous players. That DPS queue times have soared under the present circumstances shouldn't arrive as a shock.

I'm going to try to explain why Call to Arms may very well result in more tanks queueing for 5-mans through the dungeon finder and who we're likely to see if and/or when this happens.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we are not sure if we can be bribed.

As most of you are probably aware, Blizzard recently announced a new incentive structure for the dungeon finder system called the Call to Arms. In essence, it rewards players for performing what is then the most-needed role in the dungeon finder with a BoA bag containing gold, flasks, and, potentially, mounts and pets.

The Tuesday Shifting column covers the two roles most likely to receive the "goodie bags" -- tanking and healing (I don't think anyone's laboring under the delusion that groups can't get off the ground due to a lack of DPS) -- and the ensuing firestorm on the forums caught my eye. Predictably, players have mixed feelings about the change. Many (I think correctly) blame players' rudeness and uncooperative attitudes for driving off the tank population, but even more are indignant that Blizzard is "bribing" tanks for something they feel should have been addressed by role redesign.

Examine all the arguments in their totality, and I think there's only one real conclusion: I don't believe that Blizzard failed in its effort to make tanking more interesting and enjoyable.

I do believe that developers are struggling to deal with a problem created and driven almost entirely by player behavior. Modern heroics aren't fun, not because the content is bad (it's not) or overtuned (it's fine), but Cataclysm combines parts of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King 5-man experience that don't play well with each other. The dungeon finder contributes to these problems, but not in the way that you'd think.

Blizzard just posted a huge announcement to the WoW community site, unveiling the dungeon finder's newest evolution -- Call to Arms. Aimed at reducing the time for dungeon queues, the new Call to Arms will give players the opportunity to queue for level-85 heroics as "needed" roles (tanks and healers) to shorten queues and be rewarded with goodie bags containing gold, rare gems, companion pets, and mounts like the Deathcharger's Reins, Swift White Hawkstrider, and more.

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

When patch 4.0.6 hit, I logged into the game excited and eager to see all of the new changes. The first thing that I noticed was that I was no longer The Exalted, a title I'd worked hard to achieve, but had somehow been demoted to Chef. Strange. Maybe Blizzard just reset everyone's titles. I went through my title collection, intending to turn The Exalted back on, and saw that it had been removed entirely. I checked my achievements. I still had 40 exalted reputations, but it no longer conferred a title; nor did 45 exalted reputations, which I don't have yet. The Exalted was my favorite title and the one I wore at all times. What had Blizzard done with it?

Turns out that unlike other achievements and rewards, which stay with you once you've earned them, Blizzard has made the decision to move this title, taking it away from those who had earned it previously. As I understand it, you can get your title back once you've hit 50 exalted reputations, which seems to be the new standard, but it sounds like Blizzard plans to take the title away again every time it adds a new batch of reputations.

Personally, I think that's a terrible idea. Other rewards aren't rescinded when something new comes along. Stinker, the reward for collecting 50 companion pets, was not magically unlearned when the 75 pet achievement was released. Ulduar drakes did not vanish into smoke when ICC drakes came around. Yes, it's true that Blizzard picked the perfect title for The Exalted, and anything else would be inferior. That doesn't diminish the efforts of the people who already worked for it.

What do you think? Was removing the title (and changing it to the 50 reputations achievement) the right thing to do? Or did Blizzard drop the ball on this one?

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There's a new patch headed to the beta servers, and MMO-Champion has datamined the following title rewards for raid achievements in Cataclysm:

• Heroic: Nefarian -- Defeat Nefarian in Blackwing Descent on heroic difficulty. Title: Blackwing's Bane
• Heroic: Sinestra -- Defeat Sinestra in the Bastion of Twilight on heroic difficulty. Title: Dragonslayer
• Heroic: Al'Akir -- Defeat Al'Akir in the Throne of the Four Winds on heroic difficulty. Title: Of the Four Winds
• Defender of a Shattered World -- Complete the raids and heroic dungeons listed below. Title: Defender of a Shattered World

Who else is pretty pumped to be a Dragonslayer?

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

What keeps gamers hooked on their game of choice? Chances are, it's an element of the gameplay that was teased out with the help of games researcher John Hopson. The experimental psychologist and beta program head for Microsoft Game Studios examines what makes gamers do the things they do and then designs ways to keep them happily doing just that -- most recently, in titles such as Shadow Complex, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach.

All that, and he's a WoW player to the core. "I mostly play in the two semi-official Microsoft WoW guilds, and lately I've been a hardcore player in a casual's body," he notes. "My wife and I had our first child a few months ago, so we've both dropped raiding and have been levelling alts instead since that doesn't require a fixed schedule. So far, we're both up to 5 level 80s apiece. :)" We thought it was time to turn the tables on Hopson, a loyal reader and occasional commenter at WoW.com, and ask him for his perspectives on WoW from the inside out.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.

Who deserves to be an officer? Guild leaders struggle with this question quite a bit. It comes down to this question: In your guild, does the officer rank exist to reward players or to give them responsibilities? In other words, what is the purpose of the officer rank? Later, I'll talk about the two most common purposes. But first, this week's e-mail comes from a player who feels he deserves a promotion to officer.

Hey Scott,

Ancilorn over at the European forums has confirmed that the armored Frost Wrym mounts mined from early builds of the Patch 3.3 PTR will be rewards for achievements in the Icecrown Citadel raid. Much like past raid dungeons have awarded mounts for completing meta-achievements, such as the Ironbound Proto-Drake for Ulduar, the Frost Wyrms will be "up for grabs," for dedicated raiders.

MMO-Champion previously unearthed this armored Frost Wyrm model along with spells named Frostbrood Vanquisher and Frostbrood Vanquisher Flight, which could give some insight into some Icecrown Citadel encounters. Despite the confirmation of new reward mounts (expected to grant 310% flying speed, as well), there is currently no word on the removal of the Ulduar reward mounts, which Blizzard has said to stay for "the foreseeable future".

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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With all of the hubbub around the new LFG interface coming in patch 3.3, we haven't done much thinking lately about that other form of group play in the game, battleground PvP. But Cassandri at HoTs and DoTs has, and she has some interesting insight about what players are doing in the battlegrounds and why. She notes that some people dive off on their own, like Lone Rangers. And she hints that maybe, if these people were so persuaded, things would go better if they fought together, rather than on their own.

An interesting thought, for sure, and probably true -- while there are situations where I aim to be by myself in the battlegrounds (if I'm on my rogue and just want to hunt down some clothies), things almost always go better in there when you work as a team. So here's an idea: why not take the rewards implemented in the LFG system and apply them to better behavior in the battlegrounds?

We've been talking a lot about Patch 3.3's new Dungeon Finder feature lately, and for good reason -- it's leaps and bounds better than the LFG tool we've been dealing with for the past several years. One of the features that's caught everyone's attention is the great reward that level 80 players get for completing random WotLK Heroic dungeons. Well, if you're a lower-level player using the tool to run random dungeons at your level, it turns out you get something too.

The Satchel of Helpful Goods is a level-scaling bag o' rewards, which EU Community Manager Wryxian says will contain one piece each from two sets of loot rewards. Quoth the crocolisk:

...these satchels are rewards from doing a random dungeon through the LFG tool at lower levels. There's two groups of items that can be inside them. One includes bracers, rings, necklaces and cloaks. The other has belts, boots, gloves and shoulder items. What you'll find in the satchel is one item from each group, and this is also further influenced by a ten level range. So for example, what is in a satchel received for completing a dungeon between levels 20 and 30 might be a nice necklace and some gloves, but from a dungeon between 50 and 60 you might get a ring and some new boots.

The level ranges he refers to are 5-15, 15-25, 24-34, 35-45, 46-55, 56-60, 60-64, and 65-70. Wryxian indicates that the two item groups are set up so as not to trivialize quest rewards from the zones in your level range, and to make sure that you're always receiving a variety of gear. It's unknown at this time whether these'll be blues we've seen before, a la Elven Spirit Claws, or whether they're newly-created blues with the express purpose of being Satchel rewards. Still, pretty cool. Oh, and you get money too.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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Ah, Quel'delar -- the Patch 3.3 questline with rewards for everybody. Well, everybody except tanks. And elemental shamans. And shadow priests, and moonkin, and mutilate rogues, and you get the idea. While the caster sword is itemized very well for DPS casters -- and can be used by two of them -- the mace version is loaded with MP5, which is patently useless for them. A lot of healers don't even really need it on their weapon.

Well, Blizzard may not have caved to tanks or rogues, but they certainly caved to DPS casters, as Bornakk indicates that the MP5 on the Hammer of Purified Flame is being converted to haste to better match Quel'delar, Lens of the Mind. As an elemental shaman in dire need of replacing his Aesuga, I appreciate that!

Then again, this makes it even more odd that sword-and-board tanks are still left out in the cold in this questline. I suppose there's still time before the patch for Blizzard to make the change, but it looks like they're not going that route. Oh well, tanks. There's always dual-spec.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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