World of Warcraft Latest News

Voice chat latest news and some other news

2007-09-14T04:19:00.000-07:00

We have the exact list that will have the voice chat enabled on patch day. The following realms will be the pilot study and then each week new lists will be opened up to the voice chat. The first set are these from enchish and german realms.

English: Earthen Ring Ravencrest Runetotem Shadowmoon Shadowsong Shattered Hand Silvermoon Skullcrusher Spinebreaker Stormrage Stormreaver Stormscale Terenas Thunderhorn Turalyon

German: Aegwynn Alexstrasza Alleria Antonidas Baelgun Blackhand Destromath Die Silberne Hand Eredar Frostmourne Frostwolf Gorgonnash Gul'dan Kel'Thuzad Kil'Jaeden Madmortem Malfurion Mal'Ganis Mannoroth Nathrezim Nozdormu Perenolde Proudmoore Zirkel des Cenarius Zuluhed

For further info you can visit here:. (Info)

Further more the Death knight will be made available to all races currently in the game. The death knight will be a new class just as There is Human Mage there could be Human Death knight, as an example. The revered reputation to get heroic keys and attunement will not change. the conflagrate bug will be fixed in patch 2.2 As it is the icon is still being displayed and conflag is not being consumed at all.

As a last note, at some point in the future we should see Surnames as well. However this could take long to implement :)

Daily blues posts.

2007-09-13T02:07:00.001-07:00

20% of all trojans on the internet are aimed at WOW. This was revealed yesterday by Kapersky labs where they Produced a list with the Top games targetted by trojans. Wow came second place with Lineage II coming first. As a reminder I would advice a good Antivirus program to stay safe with your wow accound. At the moment I have Avast which is free and updates daily. I got hacked once by a keylogger and believe me - it was a painful fortnight sending emails to blizzard to settle my account back.

There will be an increase in backpack size and bag space. Not long ago there was the rumour that players will have an Extra bag for resistance armour sets. The items that can be put on like Onyxia Neck etc will not be considered as keys. Most probably Season 3 Arena is scheduled for patch 2.3

The 8 piece armour set (like Naxxramas) is probably never to be seen again. In a way it is a good approach because players would definitely choose to get an set item instead of a random thus making the raid grow stronger slower. Blizz are happy with the 5 piece armour set and I also vote for that. More over the set bonus is at 4 items so you have a larger leeway to mix and match.

Voice chat feature will not go live for every realm on patch day 2.2 Instead they will selectively implement it on some realms and open it up on furthere week maintenances.

The initial set of realms that will have voice chat enabled on patch day: Aerie Peak, Altar of Storms, Alterac Mountains, Andorhal, Anetheron, Anvilmar, Archimonde, Arygos, Black , Dragonflight, Blackwing Lair, Dalaran, Dalvengyr, Deathwing, Demon Soul, Dentarg, Doomhammer, Duskwood, Executus, Gnomeregan, Haomarush, Icecrown, Jaedenar, Kel'Thuzad, Khadgar, Lethon, Mal'Ganis, Norgannon, Onyxia, Scilla, Sentinels, Steamwheedle Cartel, Tanaris, The Venture Co, Thrall, Turalyon, Uldaman, Undermine, Ysera, Ysondre, Zuluhed.
There are no plans for classic realms in the future. classic realms are servers that players can only progress till lvl 60 and don't raid further than naxx.

Blizzard third title codename Hydra

2007-09-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

Starcraft II was codenamed Medusa and there is rumour about what the new game would be that has it's codename Hydra. Most probably they are working on another MMO project or a possible WOW 2. Also Blizz is hiring for it's next generation MMO. The channeled spells are working as intended another blue post explained. He argued that when a fireball has to be cast one needs to be in line of sight but with channeled spells they intended to give a bit more leeway cause of PVE. Otherwise players using channelling spells would be penalised when compared to cast spells.

There will be also be new PVP mounts for Blood elves and for Dranei . As always no ETA was announced. The WSG and AB battlegrounds (not so popular nowadays) because as said they are symettrical. AV is a different story however because there are many exploits to be tackled. We will soon see a revamp in AV with patch 2.2 or possibly 2.3

Release of Patch 2.2

2007-09-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

Patch 2.2 will not go live 13 September 2007. This was revealed yesterday late night in the warcraft forums. It seems that some blue admin is having fun writing the phrase "It's not tomorrow" and then warcraft players write a 12 page topic full of moaning posts. Some of them just moan about the fact that the patch is always delayed by weeks and some even explore the philosophy of Warcraft Delays and False promises on ETAs.

Some other Blue arguments that this is not a question of keeping people in the dark but not giving ETAs simply because they do not want to give false promises. He says that things can happen and ETAs are not respected. Indeed things DO ALWAYS happen at blizz :)

There will be tweaks for WoTLK but no radical changes. Blizz do not want to alter the UI because many players are accustomed to the old UI anyway. If they need to change it all there are addons on the topic. At blizz con they also talked about the FREE damage to healers (I actually need that for my priest) and this will be simply a fact of so much +healing will be also an amount of +dmg. Obviously the +dmg will be a lot less otherwise healers will run around with +2k dmg :)

More 2.2 changes

2007-09-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Ashtongue Talisman of Lethality now works with Kidney Shot for rogues and the Night elves shoulders have been shrinked drastically.

Wood working should be a future crafting skill but it is definitely not imminent. Some changes about evocation have also been made to prevent occasional timing issues which returned less mana than it should.

Possible change on character transfer cooldown

2007-09-12T03:32:00.000-07:00

At the current moment you need at least 3 months playing in a server before being able to transfer your character to a different realm. There is the possibility about changing this to 1 month which on one hand would give players more freedom to move and more income to Blizz - but at the other will disrupt the normal behaviour and progress of guilds more. Everyone knows how hard it is to get a core number of players and progress through content. Some classes more than others like Tanks and healers are much cared for in guilds and having one or two leaving the guild at any time to transfer to a new server could prove a big step back to the guild progress. From my point of view in my guild we lost 2 main tanks this week. We are trying Kael thalas and you can imagine how hard it is to train the new tanks their roles.

Season 3 weapons, quivers and pvp titles

2007-09-12T03:27:00.000-07:00

Most probably they will lower the weapons rating so that there is not so much difference between 1300 rating team and 1800 rating teams. This is a bit awkward because the ladder is there for competition and once you work hard you should obtain a good weapon. Blizzard is concerned that some people just join arena teams to get the weapon and then disband and use it for PVE - which for me is more than fair because you worked hard in pvp. On the contrary one that Raid All week for a good PVP weapon should not be allowed to use it in PVP ?

Something about the the hunters quiver bag slot problem is being discussed at blizz atm.

New PVP titles will be introduced in the game at some point, because at the moment the Gladiator etc titles will not be enough for the Arena Season 3. Also more tabards will be added further more to the game - quest tabards and also crafted ones.

Warcraft Manga: The Sunwell Trilogy and the Sunwell Plateau Dungeon

2007-09-04T03:53:00.001-07:00

The article at http://www.blizzplanet.com/content/727/ gives a very detail account of the story unfolding with the new Sunwell Plateau instances, to be introduced in patch 2.4

Blizz Planet explain why the blood elves chose to return to the sunwell plateau and that the final boss will be Kil'jaeden.

Back in time the high elves created the sunwell from a vial taken from the well of eternity. In Knaak's trilogy we see how Sargeras was defeated by Malfurion, Illidian and their conterparts but Illidian takes some vials from the well of eternity with a good target in mind. However when he pours a vial into the lake atop the mountain, the other elves see this as a threat to future peace and stabiity and turn up against him. Already traitor to sargeras Illidian feels no ties to his people neither, now that he has done so much to rescue them. With his natural eyesight lost and with a greater sight gained from sargeras powers, he goes mad and secludes himself in the Black Temple (story continues in BC)

Now with the Sunwell plateau blizzard continues on with the sage of the blood elves and their need of a new home, promised by Kel Thalas and never given. Malygos also comes into the equation with him gone mad after 10 000 years of a lonely life secluded in his lair. He no longer protects magic, a role once given to him by the Titans.Possibly we will find Dalaran floating above Northrend fighting the blue dragonflight and plotting to destroy the Lich King once and for all.

Upcoming patches and timeline.

2007-09-03T05:36:00.001-07:00

Patch 2.2 is the upcoming patch (long time awaited too). This patch will feature mainly the voice chat and item and enchanting changes. The Zulaman patch will be 2.3 as well as guild banks. After that we willl see Sunwell Plateau in patch 2.4. the ETA for patch 2.2 is Early September 2007 but this could vary by weeks, the number of which is unknown but surely cumulative.

A guy called Jonathan Driscoll coded an online database that people could use to search AH items directly from their browsers. Time will tell if this feature is useful or not. Certainly it is cool.

Alterac Valley changes

2007-09-03T05:26:00.001-07:00

As it stands right now, AV is the queen of PVP rushes. At the start both Alliance and Horde rush to the other side to cap a GY as quickly as possible and then push on to the general. Most of the time there are like 5 - 8 that try to capture towers but that is not a necessity. Horde as a general rule kill Belinda straight away as it happens to be on their path but few Allies bother with Galvanagar, which btw can be killed with a 5 man group.

There are plans to change this situation to encourage people participate and PVP more. the npc locations will be changed and also change terrain exploits that make players advance faster. Some of the earlier NPC's will give less honor when killed while the end ones wil reward more. Also they are increasing the amount of honor gained when a side win the battle. The resurrection system of spawning back in the starting point will be reworked.

As AV was in the beginning we used to spend 5-6 hours in a good fight and it was nice but long. As it is now sometimes battles are won in 10 mins and few bother to kill the other faction and that makes it a boring grind of honor, particularly on AV weekends. Somehow players from opposing side seem to mutually agree not to engage in combat so that they will get the most honor in the least time, no matter how.

A way in between must be find to revive AV.

More information on Patch 2.2

2007-09-03T05:16:00.001-07:00

Nothrend:

Utgard Keep will have several wings and feature the popular heroic version as well. The Nexus will be very much like Hell fire peninsula Instance with Malygos as a last short 25 man raid much like Magtheridon.

The New PVP zone with siege weapons and destructible buildings , Lake Winter Grasp, will feature siege weapons that are specific to an objective and event rather than items owned by players.

Legendaries in Wotlk

Legendaries will be powerful enough weapons that players would acheive a very great accomplishment but not a one off weapon that never be replaced. As it stands right now Thunderfury is very much popular with tanks still and very little players got their hands on the Atiesh. Also There are plans to put in more legendaries in the game. They will be more available to players not as it stand now really impossible to own one.

Looks and new features.

There will be barber shops that will offer new hairstyles, tatoos, colours and earrings. The player will have a very much larger degree of changing the toon.

Level 1 to 60 will be made easier to go through. As it stands right now players find it very slow to level as opposed to Burning crusade. From lvl 60 to lvl 70 it is fast and enjoyable leveling with a story that progresses. They will revamp old zones, add quests adding COT old stratholme and also a new 10 man dungeon still to be announced. Sunwell plateau will be released before Wotlk as a 25 man raid with 6 bosses as well as a 5 man instance.

With Wotlk we should see another 2 -3 10 man instance given the Karazhan formula is so popular. Players with an old PC fear not. There are no plans of new graphics engine etc. they are only tweaking the current one.

More daily quests will be added and a new aspect of randomisation should make them less repetitive to do. With regards to guild banks they are still pretty much as last interviewed. Most importantly is that there will be an online website that everyone can see who is donating and who is withdrawing , for transparency and fairness purposes.

More Patch 2.2 news

2007-08-30T02:59:00.001-07:00

1) Spectral Tiger is going to have a little bit more armour.

2) Goblin Gumbeaus Kettle is being changed. It will have unlimited pots of gumbeaux and despawn after 3 minutes.

3) No matter what you do, Mal'Ganis plot in Old Stratholme will remain the same - that of converting Arthas down the path of insanity.

4) Naxxramas , as already posted, will be the first 25 man instance in Northrend. The instance will be tuned to 25 man and the encounters designed accordingly. The tier armour will be reused.

5) As it stays now, there will be one hero per expansion.

6) There is the possibility that Gilneas can be a future instance zone. This could be an idea and not eta has been set.

7) Dranei shuolders have been shrinked a litle bit

8) You can now change your gear before the arena starts but you cannot change it when you are in the actual arena. This is done to prevent people putting a lot of shadow resistance when against locks for example.

Further information about The interview by Monde Persistants to Tigole

2007-08-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

The interview in brief:

1) More information about the story of WotLK. Why players need to go to Northrend (the new continent). Accodring to Tigole, players will face the story "right off the boat" when arriving to Northrend. In previous interviews we already knew that the story will be made to unfold as the players progress through the game. One thing one must keep in mind though. Players will not be able to skip content (flying to higher level areas etc) because Blizz wants that all players have the opportunity to see the content. Pretty much like The eye instances where you need a flying mount to go there and to get a flying mount you need lvl 70. This time however it is unknown what barriers they will put to stop people from rushing through content.

In the WotLK both the Horde and Alliance are going to send their forces to defeat the lich king, but they are unaware that Arthas is actually trying to lure them against each other. This is a cunning strategy by arthas to bring them both under his power because his mindless minions are not enough for him to achieve greater goals. Is' very similar to W3 story and many aspects of the story should follow the same saga.

2) How does the Death Knight fit in? Death knights wil lstart off under the power of the Lich king but then through some quests you break free and choose to join either the Allies or The Hordes.

3) Does the Death knight has any specific weapon or could it be any weapon? At this moment it could be any weapon. Death knights can turn any weapon to runed weapon.

4) The concept of hero class has been going on for since the original warcraft. Now blizz felt that it is the right time to introduce this concept.

5) Why raising level cap to 80? Why 10 levels? Tigole explained that to level things out again, people need to progress a further of 10 levels so that new and very hard core players are even out at the end of Lvl 80. This will balance the game and at the end you will not have a level 180 item and level 100 item players in same battlegrounds for example. At this moment item level from BT are around 125-146 from t4 to t6. Adding 10 levels would even out the differences and provide more content to the game.

6) New instances in Nothrend and the Titan city. The titan city will be named Ulduar and there will be Azjol'Nerub, Malygos the blue dragon (short instance like grul or maggy) Naxxarams 2 which will be the easiest 25 man raid - much like SSC for now.

7) Are players going to feel too strong after killing Illidian - Malygos and Arthas? Tigole does not think so. The only thing is that the game should not be overpowered to any player.

8) New features to add to WOW will be Destructible Buildings, siege weapons, new voice chat and non instanced pvp zone. Tigole talks about upgrades to the servers and solid bandwidth - which I doubt given the latency and DC's we got lately :)

9) Will old battlegrounds like AV feature siege warfare? Possibly but only very remotely. Blizz is testing Lake wintergrasp first and see how it goes from there. Also adding siege warfare to AV could be hard because of the way it was coded.

10) Aszahara Battle ground. Tigole reveals that that project was done long ago and put apart for AV.

11) More information about inscription, is that atm it is still in development and many things can change. Basically inscriptions will change player's spells.

12) New Dance features: Some dances will still remain the same but the new system will allow players to actually join pieces of dances together and then show it off to their friends.

13) New features will include the Nexus, a winged dungeon with a lvl 70 wing, level 80 wing and a 25 man raid to Malygos. The old Stratholme instance where you can fight alongside arthas and put the building to fire - back in time when Arthas was still in shining armour. Also after Zul Aman patch there will be another patch with 6 bosses 25 man raid harder than BT. This will be called Sunwell Plateau and it will feature also a 5 man dungeon.

PTR patch notes update, Item changes and additional Wotlk infos.

2007-08-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

Several Enchants got lower mat requirements now

The

Enchant: Cloak - Dodge needs 3 Small Prismatic / 3 Greater Eternal Essence and 8 Primal Earth

Enchant Cloak - Stealth needs 3 Small Prismatic / 3 Greater Eternal Essence and 2 Fel Lotus

Enchant Cloak - Subtely needs 4 Small Prismatic / 2 Greater Eternal Essence and 8 Primal Shadow

Enchant Gloves - Threat needs 4 Small Prismatic / 2 Greater Eternal Essence and 8 Primal Life

Enchant Ring: Healing power needs 5 Large Prismatic Shard / 3 Greater Planar Essence and 5 Arcane Dust

Enchant Ring: Spell power needs 2 Large Prismatic Shard / 2 Greater Planar Essence

Enchant Ring: Striking needs 2 Large Prismatic Shard / 6 Arcane Dust

These changes are latest as of August 28 19:00 Server time

New Wotlk infos from Games For Windows magazine

2007-08-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

General

- There is concept art of Dalaran and The Nexus - both look pretty cool. The Nexus looks like this huge purple beam of magic shooting towards the sky, with rings surrounding it that look like little islands you could probably land on with a flying mount.
- Metzen says he doesn't want the end of Arthas' story to be predictable, as he says a "Yeah, that's pretty much what I expected" type of feeling.
- Metzen feels the Burning Crusade never really had an "ending" moment. Killing Illidan wasn't it because he didn't like the Legion either. So Sunwell will be it
- The Blood Elves are trying to reinvigorate the Sunwell using energy ported from Netherstorm (i.e. the Mana Forges), but supposively rebuilding the Sunwell is an excuse to summon Kil'jaeden.
- There is that quote that someone posted earlier in the forums that Kil'jaeden is not fully summoned, thus you can kill him with 25 lvl 70s.

Zones

- Dalaran will have one or two instanced dungeons in it (like Stockades or Ragefire they said).
- Dalaran won't have Auction Houses or class trainers again (*sigh*). Same bass-ackwards reason as with Shattrath. It will probably have portals like Shattrath though, and they said possibly one to Shattrath as well.

Dungeons

- Sunwell area will have "tweaker Blood Elves, high on magic" and 6-8 bosses.
- Info about Utgarde: will be similar to Ramparts, but with more memorable moments to break up the "pull-rest-pull-boss" structure of other instances (way they put it). One is a giant flame forge that kills you if you step into it, but if you kill the workers operating it, it dies down. Another is a guantlet area like in Shattered Halls. One boss will be a Lich, another will be a Vrykul who summons scourge minions.
- There's a map of Utgarde Keep (low level dungeon).
- It mentions the Stratholme CoT dungeon (which isn't new news but it's recent at least).
- There will be more "micro dungeons" (i.e. non-instanced dungeon-like areas.. I guess Deatholme is probably a good example). One is called Gjalerbron where the Vrykul are working side-by-side with Liches.

Classes

Death Knight
- One idea for the Death Knight class is that you'll start in Stratholme and have to break your way out.
- Two Death Knight spells mentioned: Army of the Dead (the one from the trailer) which summons a bunch of undead minions, and Death and Decay, which is an AOE spell.
- One idea for an ability is Blood Boil, a damage-over-time ability that after the duration lights up two of your blood runes.
- Generally Blood runes are damage-oriented, Frost are control-oriented, and Unholy are utility and DOT mechanics.

Professions

Inscription
- Inscribers will be able to sell scrolls.
- Only a handful of core spells can be inscribed. Example they used was you cannot extend the range of the Priest's Mind Vision, but you CAN extend the duration of the Hunter's Freezing Traps.

Games Convention Infos Wrap-up

2007-08-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

Last update 08/27: Naxxramas part updated

The Games Convention in Leipzig will end today. For people who missed that major european gaming event, even those of you who have tried to follow everything, we are compiling all the infos gathered at the Games Convention and Blue Posts (during this event). Let us know if something is missing.

Interviews

Videos

- Buffed.de (1)
- Gamona (2)
- Curse (3)
- Egames.de (5)

Text

- Actiontrip (4)

Games Convention information report

General

- The art for the expansion will look more like classic Warcraft (gothic fantasy), and less like Outlands art (high fantasy). (4)
- WotLK will have "just as much" 5-man instances as TBC and more 10-main instances due to the popularity of Karazhan. (4)
- The world map is rough and players can expect the map to change and new things on the map will be revealed over time. (Source)
- When asked about class balance, they said they had no plans for any major changes to classes. (4)
- Future hero classes could be Demon Hunter, Arch Mage, and Blademaster. (1)

Leveling

- Current plans are for a pre-expansion change to the experience curve and gain. (Source)
- Levels between 20 and 60 are going to have the experience required per-level reduced, and the experience rewarded by quests is being increased by around 30%. (3)

Heroic Badges

- In addition to the new items added in 2.3 to the heroic badges vendor, Blizzard might add new armor sets to that vendor. (3)

Flying Mount Level

- From a design standpoint, we don't want people to just fly over continent and skip things when they are leveling up. Instead we want people to explore and experience the environment around them when they first reach the shores of Northrend. You will walk (or ride) from one quest to another as the zones unfold before you instead of just flying over it without batting an eye. At some point though you will definitely be able to fly in Northrend. We are currently thinking around level 78, but haven't made a final call on this yet. (Source)

Dustwallow Marsh

- A new goblin town with several new quests will be added to Dustwallow Marsh. (3)

PvP

- A new PvP area called Lake Wintergrass ('roughly the size of Westfall') will combine world PvP with the new siege weapons and destructible buildings. The faction that controls this zone may receive an effect that not only applies to the zone, but to the whole continent. (4)

Dungeons

Sunwell Plateau (3)
- Sunwell Plateau will be released before the expansion "Wrath of the Lich King", Tigole said its planned for a patch after Zul'Aman (so it might be 2.4 minimum to get it). Sunwell Plateau is a new instance which can be found in Quel'Thalas (forest region north of the continent of Lordaeron). The instance is divided in 2 parts, one of them is designed for a 25-man raid instance (said to be the most diffcult in WoW, harder than Black temple), the other part is a 5-man instance (Normal and Heroic Modes).

Zul'Aman
- Zul'Aman will be released as soon as voice chat comes off the PTR and will be after the next patch before appearing on the PTRs. (Source)

Nexus (3)
- Tigole talked about a new instance "Nexus" located in Borean Tundra, it should be the first instance you will zone in when entering Northrend by Borean Tundra; this instance will be divided into three wings:
* A 5-man instance for level 70-71 called Ice Caverns
* A level 80 instance
* A 25-man raid instance where you will encounter Malygos (the blue dragon), that instance is located at a rift in the sky

Caverns of Time: Stratholme (1)
- There will be a new Caverns of Time instance: Stratholme, which one will be a level 80 instance 5-man. You will travel to the past before Arthas was corrupted and help him rid the city of demons and burn it down.

Utgarde Keep (3)
- Utgarde Keep which is located in Howling Fjord, will be a winged dungeon with two instances: the first wing is a level 70 instance for players to level up in (we already know about that one) and the second wing for level 80 players is called "Utgarde Pinnacle". Both instances will have Normal and Heroic modes.

Naxxramas (5)
- Tigole confirmed than Naxxramas will be retuned to be 25-man raid instance in Northrend, also he said it will be the first 25 player raid instance in the next expansion. They want as many players as posible to have a chance to see one of the best instances so far. Some encounters will be reworked to adapt them to a 25-man raid.
- Tigole said:
* They have plans to reuse Tier 3 with updated stats
* The Ashbringer story would definitely continue in WotLK
* They're still undecided on Atiesh

Professions

Inscription (3)
- The Inscription profession will do more than increases effectiveness of spells and abilities. Tigole said the team working on it wish for Inscription to be more versatile such as increasing more elements like range, duration (for example: Frost Nova having a wider radius).

Woodworking (3)
- Blizzard is considering a Woodworking profession, it will allow Hunters to create their own arrows.

Classes

Death Knight

- Death Knight requirements: According to Tigole, you won't need to be level 80 to unlock the Death Knight, it would rather be between level 55 and 60. Players can then create their Death Knights and have to go through a trial in order to be able to play their Death Knights.

- Death Knight's resourcing system (Runes): Runes are engraved by the Death Knight into his weapon (sword or axe). There will be three different kind of runes: Unholy, Blood and Frost. The Death Knight will obtain various abilities, depending on how the DK combines the runes, the number of runes than you can combine is limited to six (for example: 2 of every rune type or 4 Unholy and 2 Blood runes type), you can change your rune combination to change your playstyle/role (Tank, Dps or PvP combination mixing both with less power). Upon using his abilities, the DK consumes his runes. One DK skill example using runes: a DK skill called "Army of the Dead", which summons Ghouls, requires Blood and Unholy rune types, therefore you would not be able to use this ability with only Frost runes carved into your weapon.

Hunter

- Blizzard is considering a Woodworking profession (hunters will be able to create their own arrows),and a Mortal Strike-like shot that will reduce healing effectiveness on the target of the shot (the purpose of this idea is to increase the desirability of hunters in arena). (3)

Priest

- In the playable Wotlk demo at Games Convention, the priest spell "Pain Suppression" has been changed, the cooldown has been reduced to 1 minute and you can cast it on a friendly target up to a 20yards range. (Source)

Another batch of Wrath infos from Leipzig: Tigole interviewed by Curse

2007-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan revealed some new things during the Curse interview:

- Utgarde Keep which is located in Howling Fjord, will be a winged dungeon with two instances: the first wing is a level 70 instance for players to level up in (we already know about that one) and the second wing for level 80 players is called "Utgarde Pinnacle". Both instances will have Normal and Heroic modes.

- The Inscription profession will do more than increases effectiveness of spells and abilities. Tigole said the team working on it wish for Inscription to be more versatile such as increasing more elements like range, duration (for example: Frost Nova having a wider radius).

- About the increased leveling curve, Tigole explained a bit more : Levels between 20 and 60 are going to have the experience required per-level reduced, and the experience rewarded by quests is being increased by around 30%.

- Finally they talked about Hunters, Blizzard is considering a Woodworking profession (hunters will be able to create their own arrows),and a Mortal Strike-like shot that will reduce healing effectiveness on the target of the shot (the purpose of this idea is to increase the effectiveness of hunters in arena). These are just ideas from the team though, it might not go live.

Video of this interview by Curse

Sunwell Plateau confirmed and New Worldofthelichking instance "Nexus"

2007-08-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

A french news team Mondes Persistants had the opportunity to interview Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan yesterday (a video is on the way) during the Games Convention, and they were lucky enough to obtain new infos (not revealed yet) which are the following:

- Sunwell Plateau will be released before the expansion "Wrath of the Lich King", Tigole said its planned for a patch after Zul'Aman (so it might be 2.4 minimum to get it). Sunwell Plateau is a new instance which can be found in Quel'Thalas (forest region north of the continent of Lordaeron). The instance is divided in 2 parts, one of them is designed for a 25-man raid instance (said to be the most diffcult in WoW, harder than Black temple), the other part is a 5-man instance.

- Tigole talked about a new instance "Nexus" located in Borean Tundra, it should be the first instance you will zone in when entering Northrend by Borean Tundra; this instance will be divided into several wings and the hardest wing is designed for a 25-man raid. Nexus (thats the name of this new wotlk instance) is located at the top of a mountain, and you will encounter Malygyos in it, the blue dragon.

A video of this interview is on they way, which one contains what we talked about in this news and some more new stuff about Wrath of the Lich King.

Tigole interview during Games Convention: new infos

2007-08-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

Buffed.de interviewed Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan at the Games Convention in Leipzig, and here are the most interesting infos :

- There will be a new Caverns of Time instance: Stratholme, which one will be a level 80 instance 5-man.

- Death Knight requirements: According to Tigole, you won't need to be level 80 to unlock the Death Knight, it would rather be between level 55 and 60. Players can then create their Death Knights and have to go through a trial in order to be able to play their Death Knights.

- Death Knight's resourcing system (Runes): Runes are engraved by the Death Knight into his weapon (sword or axe). There will be three different kind of runes: Unholy, Blood and Frost. The Death Knight will obtain various abilities, depending on how the DK combines the runes, the number of runes than you can combine is limited to six (for example: 2 of every rune type or 4 Unholy and 2 Blood runes type), you can change your rune combination to change your playstyle/role (Tank, Dps or PvP combination mixing both with less power). Upon using his abilities, the DK consumes his runes. One DK skill example using runes: a DK skill called "Army of the Dead", which summons Ghouls, requires Blood and Unholy rune types, therefore you would not be able to use this ability with only Frost runes carved into your weapon.

- Future hero classes could be Demon Hunter, Arch Mage, and Blademaster.

Interview translated by Neko (the most relevant parts)

buffed: We already heard a lot of things about Wrath of the Lich King at BlizzCon. Any news since then?
Jeff: There are a couple of things we haven't talked about at BlizzCon, such as the new "Caverns of Time"-Instance Stratholme. We wanted to get back to the CoT-concept as it was one of the coolest things added to WoW recently. We also want to pursue what the Bronze Dragonflight is up to. We seek to show you the greatest moments of Warcraft history, and now we picked Stratholme. Many hardcore WoW players are fans of the old Stratholme-instance, while Warcraft 3 players know Stratholme from the single player mission, in which the player controls Arthas, burning buildings, killing the residents and fighting the Dreadlord Mal'Ganis. In WotLK you will have the opportunity to battle alongside Arthas before he turned into what he is now. You will "cleanse" Stratholme und burn it down!

[...]

Jeff: Stratholme is going to be designed for a group of 5 level 80 characters. We don't want players to visit CoT - Stratholme during leveling, but to return when they hit 80.

buffed: A question regarding the new hero class, the Death Knight: players will encounter Arthas during levelling more than once, for example in the Caverns of Time. Where else?
Jeff: CoT - Stratholme will not be part of unlocking the DK. The Death Knight is going to be a complete new gaming experience. They start with a level much higher than regular characters, supposedly level 55-60. This has yet to be determined. We are going to explain exactly how your Death Knight will be able to elude the influence of the Lich King, this development will be completely independent from the new Caverns of Time.

buffed: Did you already decide which race the playable Death Knight is going to be once a player unlocks it? For example, if your original character is a gnome, will the DK be one, too?
Jeff: Yes, we already have decided on that. But don't be surprised if we change our mind. You know, game designing is a very flexible matter. At the moment, any class can be a Death Knight, including gnomes. We reconsidered a couple of things since BlizzCon. Players probably don't have to be level 80 to unlock the Death Knight, the class will be accessible earlier. Powerleveling to level 80 in order to get to play the Death Knight as soon as possible is no fun and makes people rush through the game. We do have a lot of ideas regarding this topic. We haven't decided yet, but maybe the DK will be unlockable between level 55 and 60. Players can then create their Death Knights and have to go through a trial in order to be able to play their DKs.

buffed: But the newly created level 55 to 60 character will not become a Death Knight, or will it?
Jeff: The original character will not become a Death Knight. Many characters are named according to their class

buffed: Can you give us a bit of detail of the Death Knight's abilities?
Jeff: Of course. The Death Knight's resource is based on runes. We at Blizzard concentrate our efforts on making every single class as unique as possible. Best examples for this are the Rogue- and Warrior-classes. The Rogue uses energy and combo points while the Warrior generates rage - two things that differ greatly. When we designed the Death Knight we wanted it to be considerably different from the other classes. The DK will be able to carve runes into his weapon, which can either be a sword or an axe. There will be three different kind of runes: Unholy, Blood and Frost. Different combinations of a total of 6 runes yield different results. For example, you could use two of each type of rune, or you could use four unholy runes and two blood runes, because you want to tank with your Death Knight.. By using his abilities the Death Knight uses up the runes. For example, the Death Knight has a skill called "Army of the Dead", which summons Ghouls. This skill requires Blood and Unholy rune types. Thus, you would not be able to use this ability with only Frost runes carved into your weapon. We also designed a pretty cool system that makes the runes on your weapon flash up when changing your combination of runes.

buffed: The final question: The Death Knight is but the first of the new hero classes. Which other heroes would you like to see introduced to the game?
Jeff: My favorite? That's hard to say, I guess the Demon Hunter would be pretty cool, as would the Archmage be...

buffed: (whispering) Blademaster!
Jeff: (laughs) There's plenty of options, the fantastic Blademaster being one of them. We did a lot of brainstorming and also thought about classes that weren't present in Warcraft 3. However, we will go step by step and first of all introduce the Death Knight with Wrath of the Lich King. Then we'll see what's up next.